For most of the projects I've worked on, I've been entrusted with some degree of musical responsibility, even if it's just like coaching for vocals and stuff.

Another cultural thing that's really creepy. It's not like in the '60s, where there were definitely great high points of creativity where people were trying to outdo each other to be noticed even.

To say someone is a producer... it's kind of a slippery term.

I think I've always been extremely conscious of the kind of empowerment that comes from realizing that you're in a position to express yourself. And the fact is that - and this is the thing about punk rock - that everyone is in a position to create culture, and that point has never been lost on me. To me, that's an important political aspect of doing this, and trying to live in a way that's about dialogue as opposed to like... spectacle.

I think, then, there's the sort of, like, political dimension to lyrics. One of the problems that I've had with my output as a lyric writer is that I look back at it and there's some turn-of-phrases and some images and some kind of montage-y kinds of things I'm really proud of. But it kind of bums me out that people have told me again and again that they don't really understand what I'm trying to say.

Tim [Omundson] is just so wonderfully delicious. He has the sexiest beard on television. He's such a fabulous actor, and a great character.

I always feel like the less I think of stage presence, the better, because then I have to face the fact that I have really complicated guitar parts, I'm singing almost all the time, and I have like six pedals I've got to keep on top of