Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history.

I was young, but to me that was underground music. I had never heard anything like Venom or any of that stuff growing up in Louisville. That was sort of the only weird records I could find. All that stuff would be in the import section. And sometimes there would be some sort of goth type of stuff. But that was the stuff I was attracted to.

It was pretty common to form bands that only lasted a few years. Slint was my favorite band that I was in at the time, and I didn't realize that I was bummed out about it until quite a while later.

You can go to any small town in America, there's going to be a metal fan there. You can't say that about post-rock.

My kids don't really like when I sing for some reason...but they like when I play guitar. So I started writing songs just playing guitar for them.

On a musical level, I do find it rewarding. It's not like I want to blow my brains out while I'm playing these songs from so long ago. I am still surprised by the way the songs are constructed - note choices, the way the arrangements are made, the way these songs are assembled. I'm still amazed at times.

There are so many things that kept forcing metal back down to the underground. It survives everywhere on the planet.