Once you're away from music, I realize that's as intrinsic to who I am as anything else. That's the part that takes me out of my brain.

Over the years, music put a weapon in my hand and words in my mouth it backed me up and shielded me, it shook me and scared me and showed me the way; music opened me up to living and being and feeling.

I always felt that the most common thread in my life from when I was young until now has been a highly observant, very analytical mind.

I think we as people struggle for what is meaningful in our lives, and I think that modern, contemporary life is as easy as it's ever been, for many, many people, and the amount of physical exertion, for most people, is less than it's ever been. I think that there is something about the ritual of making things more difficult that people find meaning in.

Nothing is as nice as plugging in your guitar and turning up the volume really loud, just seeing what kind of beautiful noise you can make with it.

I think it's very disheartening and undermining to focus on nostalgia or youthful sentimentality as the lens through which you view art and culture, because then you feel like everything good already happened. I really just try to be in the present with music and just find the things that are invigorating and make me feel happy to be alive right now.

I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.