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

There's something going on right now in America, where the American spirit or character is reasserting itself around liberty. I think it's an important time, and I'm trying to document that as an artist. If I just filter what I read through the media, if I just go through what I read through the media, I'm not really in touch with the world I grew up in. I know there's a gap there, I talk to my relatives, I talk to people I meet traveling around, and their mind is on something completely different.

I have a musical ancestry as much as I have a family ancestry. Honoring those ancestors gives you access to a greater source of appreciation and information than you would have if you were just going on your own ego system.

I was raised a Christian, but I wouldn't call myself a Christian now. I think when I was younger it was easier to focus on the negative, nihilist vision... this is sort of picking up on the other half of the body, which is God and white light.

I think long and hard about what it is I'm actually trying to do, and then I kind of have to narrow my focus into that. If I don't, I'm too all over the place.

At some point, you protest too much they think you're guilty just because you're protesting.

You will never see the four original Pumpkins on stage ever again, unless it's a Hall of Fame thing. But you would never see a tour. There's so much damage, there's no way.