Music is the one universal language. It's your best friend when the chips are down, and it's better than any energy drink when you're feeling it.

One really important thing is to have good friends and family that will be there to help you when the hard times come. Because bad times do come, for everyone, at some point. The good part is, the bad times don't last forever.

I listen to tons of hard rock and metal, like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, etc., but I also listen to Beethoven and Mozart, to Discharge and the Bad Brains, and to Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. So I think there's merit to both the melodic punk and to the hardcore stuff too.

The experience of playing music at a young age really opens up one's mind to different melody in life itself, literally - like, when you've even played a recorder, or whatever, it becomes a lot easier to hear the beauty in a bird's song, or the quiet tune in a gentle rustle of the wind.

I actually think it's easier to be positive than negative, to be honest - it takes way more energy to stay mad at someone, for instance, than it does to say "i forgive you" and move on.

I think too many times people can get rigid in life, put our blinders on, get locked into one way of thinking, and forget that life has many flavors to savor.

I think all human beings are at least a little bit Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, and many of us are downright quadrophenic.