My dad, who plays guitar and piano and was in cover bands, along with my older brother, Matt, taught me guitar and stuff. I started writing acoustic songs and playing by myself in 7th grade.

A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike.

Everything must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.

A lot of the mythology that sprung up around Haile Selassie, it's not like something he asked for, having people deify him. That's pretty heavy. I don't know what you do in that situation.

When you look at what people consider success in the music industry, it's just terrible music.

In a way, to have whatever people talk about as "crossover success," I think it means you start making bad music. I mean, when I'm flipping through the channels and see the VMAs or something, I don't really see any music there.

I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone.