It's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave.

I think a lot of things are written from experience, but then you become a writer and talk about other people's experience and you tell stories. I mean, you can't just tell your own story all the time.

Competition is healthy, if you can turn it off and on. When someone gets too cocky in victory, that can ruin the positive aspect.

Isn't Timbaland a make of shoe? It's a producer? I don't know who that is. Oh well.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

Pretty much at all times music motivates me. How can I say this without sounding in any way proud of myself? Obviously I've always written songs that are critical of our government, and talk about our times. Hopefully you attempt to be timeless while doing it.

Darkness comes in waves...tell me, why invite it to stay?