I just find it really shitty that someone who never really produced anything, musically speaking, can just say, "I don't really like it." It just sucks because you put so much work into a record and someone disapproves."

Basically you're doing the best you possibly could do and until it's out there and until people are hearing good feedback, I guess that's how you know you've done something good. We're so close to it that it's hard to look outside because we're inside of it, so it's really nice when you hear good feedback on the outside.

If something inspires you, try and hold on to that inspiration because if you lose that inspiration, what do you have left?

I had demos that I'd send out of the songs and I'd get, "Great, can't wait to get in a room and actually play this and work on the album." So, it was good all-around because they knew even though I wasn't with them for some of the shows, I was being productive, which was really important because I didn't want to just sit on my ass. Once I was able to use my hand again, I would go right into it.

The afterlife I'm not so sure about. So, I don't understand why you'd want to hurt other people in thinking that you'll go on in the afterlife to have bliss. I just don't understand it.

I struggled with carpal tunnel for about 15 years to the point where I was going anywhere from acupuncture to chiropractor to actually getting a shot or two of cortisone to dipping my hand in a bucket of ice water during a show to buying a can of air. You turn it upside down and spray it on your wrist to get the frozen aspect of it and hopefully it wakes your hand up so I could get the feeling back in my hand.

I just went into my studio and started to compile stuff. I was so happy with what was coming out that good momentum just carried over and when I would listen back to some of the riffs and some of the ideas, I was completely happy because I felt like, "wow, this was a breakthrough!" The ideas and the songs were really strong and I couldn't wait to show everybody the stuff.