The only way the band could make any money was by going on tour. But going on tour meant we had to get time off from our jobs, and we couldn't get enough time off to make enough money from touring to survive, so the only way to try was to quit our jobs. None of us had a job that was so wonderful that we were just dying to keep it.

I have music in my head; I can't help it. You can put a gun to my head and it's not going to go away. The privilege is that I'm not being prevented from following that.

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.

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's great about going on tour is that it immediately unburdens me of those self-centered misconceptions. Because suddenly, with these songs you've been obsessed with for months, you're playing them for hundreds of people.

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.

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.