I took music theory in high school and dropped out halfway through the semester because it was ruining music for me.

I think metal draws dumb people. It's not exactly a thinking man's genre.

I got really tired of metal music. How do you pick what's good to sell when you're not totally into what you're listening to and marketing?

If I'm going to make music and put my heart and soul into this and dedicate my whole life to it, I want to be making something that 15, 20, 30 years from now, somebody is listening to and that is a staple of the time it came out.

My priorities now a a musician are so different now than they were as a kid. Everyone wants to be a rock star, and I wanted that too; I wanted to be on magazines and be running around the world and having all the fun.

It's been nice to have a band and people I'm close to that I can get that understanding from and help me realize what I want to do in my life as a musician.

As convenient as that would be to make it easier to communicate with more prolific musicians, I don't want to think of music like a math equation.