It's hard to keep your backbone straight in America. It's easy to turn into that which you hate, and to get smashed.

The easy solution isn't the solution, it's the problem.

It took me until my teenage years to realize that I was medicating with music. I was pushing back against my stupid school uniform, instructors who called me by my last name and my classmates, who, while friendly enough, were not at all inspiring.

When you're going into an employment environment that looks pretty scary, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community.

I don't try to be angry to prove something. I wouldn't try to intimidate you for any reason unless you were trying to intimidate me, and then I would show you that you can't do that to me.

Creating problems is easy. We do it all the time. Finding solutions, ones that last and produce good results, requires guts and care.

My mother, a very eclectic listener, had the first Doors album and gave it to me when I expressed interest in the band. It was one of the first records I ever had. As the years passed, the babysitters who used to look after me would bring their Doors albums to the apartment, and that's how I got to hear their later work.