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.

The weird thing about metal fans is we're all so maladjusted in a lot of ways. We're individualistic and opinionated and severe in our personalities - sometimes we really turn each other off. A little bit of a metal fan goes a long way.

I've got to be honest, and I'm not just saying this because the majority of you reading this live there, but I love the United Kingdom. I just flat-out love it.

The things that scare me are real life situations. Real life is much more scary than anything you can put on the movie screen. Which is why I get very upset when people try to blame the movies for the violence in this world. I'm like 'Are you kidding me?'. There is more violence in a four hour period on CNN than any movie I have in my massive collection.

You need response from the fan to fuel your sense of musical rebellion. It's very symbiotic, it's very cyclic in a way. You can't have one without the other. So I think the rebellion is reflected in the audience, but at the same time, the artist has to have that passion too. And I think once you're a fan for life, you feed each other's sense of passion and rage and whatnot. You really can't have one without the other.

I've always gravitated towards those ultimate lines in songs, the line you grab on to. That line in 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' 'Here we are now/Entertain us' - the irony, the antagonism; that's always stuck with me.

The way I make music is just a reflection of how I think music should be made. Where you sit in a studio, and you make music, and you use technology to your advantage, not to hide all the blaring mistakes.