I was the kid in the class who was looking for the angles to question things or make wise-ass remarks, not knowing enough to be afraid of being myself or showing intelligence. But I wasn't the only kid like that in my classes because of where I grew up. I'm really thankful I grew up in a town where there were a lot of other mutant kids. I'm from Boulder, Colorado, which went through a lot of dramatic changes when I was growing up.

One of the best things that's come out of the Seattle protests is the birth of the Independent Media Center. It's not as though the independent media movement wasn't already there, but it's given it another jump-start. There's the feeling that not only should we report on our underground culture and our own situation, but now we have to start telling people what's really going on at a time when everything from CNN to USA Today is as tightly controlled as Tass or Pravda.

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.

Well, once you get involved with bloodsport litigation, you can not only get drunk on your own greed but start to believe your own lies.

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.

You have to be down here in the States to realize just how tightly controlled the corporate media is and how much they practise Soviet-style censorship through creative omission.

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