I'm constantly working on something new, whether it's a Garbage song, or for someone I'm producing or a song for film or TV whatever it is. I guess I'm sort of living in the moment and moving towards what I'm doing next. I think most artists are like that.

I found when we released Not Your Kind of People it was hard for me to go back on tour, especially when we had some runs that were 7 or 8 weeks in a row and I wouldn't see my family the whole time. It has gotten easier with the internet you know because you can Skype or get on Facetime and connect with your family. It was much harder to do that when we started Garbage 20 years ago.

It's funny, I don't really feel that nostalgic. I only recently started putting up some photos from some of the sessions I've done over the years and some of the Garbage sessions because my daughter, who's 10-years-old, when she was about 6 or 7 she was more curious about what I do. I have all these platinum records and stuff, they've all just been in boxes in storage for years but I started just digging through those things because I sort of want her to be aware of my past. I never really put the old recordings on and listen to them and go, "Oh that sounds great."

I made so many recordings with junky mics and crappy mixing consoles, you have to use what your tools are and in some ways that's been inspirational.

I think also just being from the Midwest, my dad was a stoic Midwesterner, he always told me never take anything for granted and you have to work for what you get so. That's funny because my friend Frank Anderson said something really funny he goes, "A lot of the people from the midwest are the laziest shits I've ever met." And he's right. I know some. You can't say its a stereotype that only people from the Midwest are that way because there are definitely people I know who hate to work and just want to hang out and drink beer.

I'd work on Garbage or I'd edit a song or writing here, but I was able to do a lot of things with my family. There are things outside of Garbage, the whole band has come to realize that we need things like that. That's why we took that break. Garbage had swallowed us up and had become a full time obsession for us and we needed to escape that and reclaim our old lives.

Now with the world being such a global community, the way the Internet has sort of leveled the playing field because you have so many things that are instantly accessible. It used to feel that way though, this outside pressure that you had to go to New York or LA or actually Nashville if you're into country music to succeed. But obviously we didn't and I didn't move to LA til after I had established us. I think it's easier for people to do it these days just because of the global world we live in.