After the Ramones, it was more about new wave for me than punk.

I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down.

It's an art to live with pain... mix the light into gray.

I'd like people to be educated on the voting machines, making sure that our democracy isn't being hijacked by computer technology. There's no reason there can't be a paper trail on those machines.

I'm over smoking. You know, I feel like I've gone on long hikes and gotten to the top of the mountain and I'm looking at something beautiful, some great huge landscape, and there's some of the cleanest air that's on the planet. And then I light up, and say, "Ahh, what a great smoking moment this is!" So it's something evil that's taken over, and I want control over it.

I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. Some of it is background music, and some of it is things that might affect a person's day, if not their life, or change an attitude. The best songs are the ones that make you feel something.

I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song. It's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs.