The big picture is a nice way to think of things if you have the freedom to.

It's harder to put yourself in a place where you could easily be seen as a fake. But that's more interesting to me.

I'd got accepted to the seminary in Wisconsin, and I was gonna become a priest, but the last second I thought, 'I'll just go to public school.' I had just gotten a new amplifier in my bedroom, and I didn't think I was allowed to take it with me.

Punk is an attitude, not a genre, age group, or time period. What's interesting is trying to define the blues and punk in different ways. They are very close cousins.

I came up from growing up with a lot of Catholic guilt, a lot of punk rock, hipster guilt in the later years where I think people have thrown a lot of things on me. Where I always felt like I'm not supposed to tell the horn section what to play or I don't want to come off egotistical.

It is the pursuit of happiness that brings us happiness, and not the happiness achieved.

Saying you love something out loud with the wrong intonation in your face can damn you and destroy what you're working on.