It's easy to gravitate toward something negative as opposed to something positive, especially if you're an outsider.

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

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.

I know plenty of hyper-intelligent metal people, but at the same time, there's this dumbass, hardheaded, macho attitude associated with it. For younger people, it's like a succubus.

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.

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?

We live with the things that we do to ourselves and others in doing what we've done to ourselves.