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.

A song is only as strong as its foundation, and when it comes so naturally in any setting, those are the songs that will hopefully outlive you, maybe even outlive the next generation of You.

Live your life, no matter what that life is.

I grew up poor in crappy situations various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thompson essays or reading the Beats. I was a huge fan of the Beat movement.

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

I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I asked my mother to give up costody and sign parental rights over to my grandmother, who I lived with while I went to school. I was clean and finally starting to figure myself out. I can only say that now without laughing. I was still very out of my own place, and I didn't even know what that place was. All I knew was that I could write music, that I had no idea what that could mean and that I was still surrounded by people I couldn't relate to. I hadn't found my tribe yet.

I didn't write my speech until the night before, and even then I refused to write it out like I would say it, preferring to keep cribbed notes I could come back to if necessary. I wanted this to feel like a conversation because it was what I wanted to say that mattered, not how it looked on paper.