Conception of a film starts with the music. Always. I hear the movie before I can ever write it. I would say that 80% of the time, that's the successful stuff. It's the other stuff I have to work for to get right, and sometimes it doesn't work out, but the music is always the beginning. So I'm still a music journalist.

I remember that, before John Lennon died, everyone was saying that Rolling Stone couldn't do good reporting anymore. But when he died, they wrote this amazing issue, as they should have about Lennon. They did that when Elvis died, too.

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.

I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director.

The power of music is still with me, every day. It's one of the most inspiring things available in the world.

Be positive, be positive. It's rough out there, but don't succumb. Don't succumb to the cynicism in the world.

Time puts things in proper perspective.