When it's time to write a new song, anything that you thought you understood last time is pretty much pulverized.

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.

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.

I'm a rock-and-roll drummer, so my job is to create chaos.

I've found that writing and playing music has so little to do with will, and so much to do with just finding what's there waiting for you.

I've got childhood friends who are working for non-profit foundations, or who are running for state senate and doing things that actually do fight evil in this world. And what am I doing? I bang on some drums in a rock band. I try to tell myself that by doing that, I'm fighting evil - which is completely absurd. Music is not equipped in any way to fight against anything. Other than, I guess, it could fight against silence.

I love love. Growing up, I always thought it was a state, and I'd wait for it to appear. Now I think it's an activity, a skill, something you strive to create. A constant conversation between emotion and imagination and flesh.