I play drums, and I'd recommend it to anyone, except maybe your neighbors. It's great exercise - physical, mental, emotional, and social. It takes deep concentration but also activates concentration. If you're doing it right, it's always just a little harder than what you can actually pull off.

My projects are just side effects of what I obsess over, what I chat about, what random things pop into my head, what I dream at night.

What most people call "chaos" is actually incredibly predictable and maddeningly boring - greed, close-mindedness, warring over power.

I try not to think about the drums themselves. If I do, I'll end up hitting myself in the head with a drumstick, or sustaining some weird injury.

I feel vulnerable when my ego is threatened - if I get jealous of another band's good time slot at a big festival, if I'm about to get clobbered in a political debate, if I'm trying to impress someone I have a crush on. It's the opposite of openness, letting go, allowing deep feelings to express themselves. For me, that comes from playing music and from kissing.

There were no rules. There's no guide to follow. I would just trust my instincts for some unknown reason. Something inside me would say, "This guitar is not loud enough," and I wouldn't know why. You never know how to reach that point until you've reached it.

When it comes down to intuition, when it comes down to gut feelings about whether a song is right, you can get distracted with words, rationalization. There's nothing wrong with music school, but part of music school has to be the ability to forget all of it, too.