I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me awhile to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want...and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God.

Like any form of death, at some point you just have to get up and say yeah I'll take it, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen and sorta chop your head off. It's easy to avoid all that...there's always another moment, another girl, another high, another drug, there's always something to distract you.

I believe that if the Tribune company ever tries to close down Wrigley Field that you will have a protest from every corner of the globe.

It seems to me that references to bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin meant more to me a year ago and all those old things are totally losing importance.

I mean my point as an artist is I'm on my own little weird journey across the sky here and whether or not anybody's listening, or listening to the degree I would like them to, at the end of the day has to be an inconsequential thing because I can't chase this culture.

I think I kind of approached music with this sort of, like, weird thing where I kinda set myself up where I could kinda be myself but not really. I kinda had a backdoor out. So if you criticized me, I kinda had my defenses working. And the problem is that some people seize on that as inauthenticity, which is understandable. So that's painful because it's not that you're being inauthentic...there's a difference between being a poseur and being someone who's so emotionally challenged they're kind of just doing their best to show you what they've got.

I never wanted to leave the Smashing Pumpkins. That was never the plan.