I've always admired people with really strong presences and felt that caring about the visual component of what you do is not intrinsically superficial or vain.

The main issue was deciding what to play: Should it be old Ramones material or new material? I had about three albums worth of new material, but I knew that people would rather hear the Ramones songs.

Ricky Nelson... I couldn't believe it when he died. He was a great rock star.

Visuals are as artistic as sounds, so being serious about both isn't a contradiction to me.

If somebody thinks wearing pretty dresses onstage somehow discredits us that's pretty absurd.

Progression is important. I'm always going to play music in the general vein of rock'n'roll, but when I started I was very much associated with the West Coast lo-fi thing and I didn't want to get anchored in with anything that was just in vogue for the time being.

I like California a lot more than New York these days.