Everybody is influenced by someone.

I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be.

If you sold a million records, the only way you could be disappointed is if the guy down the street sold seven million. But you've got to start dodging bullets once you've sold that many records, because everybody wants to kill you. We're not in that position. We can still be very successful and not have to worry about wearing bulletproof vests.

I would hope that the future would have an international community that's not just bent on commerce, but that's focused on refugees, of all kinds and from all places. We don't know that won't happen in the U.S. someday. It literally could be a crisis from climate change, or anything. I think there needs to be a global focus on people taking care of people.

I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.

Most frontmen are not born hams like David Lee Roth. We're more like Joey Ramone: awkward geeks who somehow find our place in the world on the stage.

At the end of the day it's the fans who make you who you are.