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.

There's part of me that feels a privilege not to do music, but to do what everybody should be allowed to do, which is to do what you're driven to do.

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

It's amazing to think that there must be this river of ideas constantly rushing inside of a person, and once you've somehow found a path into it, then it's just there, whether you will it to be or not.

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.

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'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.