I think one of the beauties so far of the so-called Spirit of Seattle is there aren't any leaders, pop stars, or guru figures that everyone else is falling in line with and following. No [Nelson] Mandela, Havel, or Subcomandante Ski Mask riding in on a white horse and everybody else just wanting to follow them to the promised land. We're stitching it together and doing it ourselves.

I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco.

This is my home. Home is where the disease is. As long as I stay in America, I'll never run out of subjects for songs.

My parents didn't hide reality. I watched cartoons and the news with equal fascination.

I think that what's perceived as punk out in shopping malls or in chain stores or on MTV has almost nothing to do with what punk is about.

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.

Another part of what gave me a questioning, rabble-rousing, activist heart and soul is that when all these heavy events went down, my parents did not shelter the kids from it.