I was trying to be this person who is cool, eternally rocking.

I've thought many times, 'I can't write this,' but on my own little planet I found the courage to write it because it was true. I put aside fear of Father being angry with me. It's hard though; the world pales in comparison with the stature of a parent. In some small-consolation way, my parents feel I'm helping people by giving them something to identify with. They feel proud in a sort of reverse way. My mom's proud of the fact that lots of kids look up to me.

I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.

Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves.

I'm an experimental artist in a field that doesn't celebrate experimentation. It celebrates self-destruction, which I guess you could say is a creative endeavor.

There are people out there who are older who are cool. I want that.

I was playing heavy metal when I was 18. I had to evolve out of that into an alternative consciousness about what it meant to change the way I played guitar, and the kind of songs, and the subject matter, and singing about child abuse, and all this stuff. I had to come from somewhere, and I had to take chances to do that.