Because of the media, the way the world is perceived is as a place where resources and time are running out. We're taught that you have to grab what you can before it's gone. It's almost as if there isn't time for compassion.

It's really difficult trying to find the line where you don't piss anybody off.

50 percent of the people I perform for have come to scream at me and the other 50 percent have come to listen to the music.

I get along really well with [my father] now, but I had a terrible time with him in my teenage years. All we did was scream at each other, and when we weren't screaming at each other, we just wouldn't talk to each other.

It was like I had a curse on me. I couldn't believe how much God was piling on. There was so much death around me.

Still, the music was always there, and the lyrical capability was always threatening to show its head.

[My mother] pretty much used to go along with my dad in that she wanted me to get an education so that if this incredible dream I had didn't work out, I would have something to fall back on.