I started to find that music was something that really brought a lot of joy into my life, and it was sort of cool because I discovered that I had a gift for it, too. So the stuff I would listen to I could play along, I could sing along.

People such as Hunter S. Thompson and the Beats were a huge influence on me, not just in what they were saying, but how they said it.

It is always the nights you cannot remember that eventually become the stories you don’t forget.

Whether it's the Axis of Evil, or the evils of eating meat, it is a concept that has all but lost the impact it once had, because everyone thinks different things in this world are evil. PETA thinks what we do to animals is evil, but I think their overzealous approach is evil. Evil, in more ways than one, is comparable to the truth: definitions vary from one individual to the next.

We are defined by our dignity to rise above debasement. We are certainly better people for doing so.

I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs I love writing on an acoustic because I can hear what every string is doing; the vibrations haven't been combined in a collision of distortion or effects yet.

I think of how and where all the horrible people I've come across in my life ended up, and I smile.