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.

It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.

Fifteen minutes of fame doesn't make a career. An article in a magazine, newspaper, interview on television or multiple print ads may stroke your ego, but nothing much else. An artist's career is a lifetime venture. Just because an artist is on top doesn't mean they are sheltered from a crash. As has been stated, the higher you climb, the harder you fall.

You can't steal an artist's songs and also tell him he can't license that music to a commercial.

I've always been making up my own restrictions for myself, from day one, and it's compelling, because it forces me to think. That's always been a driving force for me.

We were like a white family from the 1920s or something. My parents had this bizarre, different way of looking at things from the people that surrounded us. I went to an all-Mexican grade school and an all-black high school, and not many people in those places liked the same stuff as me.

I just think old old movies, they make you concentrate and pay attention so much more. They feel so warm. A lot of modern digital videotape, it's just too bright. Don't know why, it's not warm.