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

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.

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.

It's weird to me to even say, "I wrote this song." I never feel like I wrote it; I feel like I heard it.

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.

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.

Pop music is the one genre that isn't a genre. If the kids like it, then that's what defines it as pop music. Pop music is just something new.