The ideology of the Smashing Pumpkins was ultimately more valuable than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's what critics can't put their finger on.

Around the mid-'90s every hair guy who would have been in a hair-metal band got his tattoos and suddenly decided he was alternative. It just became like a thing.

I'm not interested in pop art.

When alternative music - which is supposed to be the standard-bearer of where white rock is headed - becomes either too cute or too manufactured, that's just really not good.

In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me.

The closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets.

People always called the Cure gloomy, but listening to the Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way.