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

Well, I don't think I'll ever stop being frustrated or feel fulfilled artistically.

In San Francisco, most of the older activists, especially at Berkeley, were very hostile towards punks. The music, certainly, wasn't nice and mellow for them, and neither was our look or our attitude. While in Vancouver, the two most important early punk bands, D.O.A. and the Subhumans, were both managed by former yippie activists, who saw this as a logical extension of what they were already doing.

I have very mixed feelings about Jesse Jackson. He's very good about labor, and human and civil rights issues, but not so good on cultural issues.

I think one of the most important things punk brought back was the whole concept of staying independent and doing things yourself. It made music a lot less boring in any category you can name.

You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless, or you can spend it on a football stadium or a golf course.

As a human being with notoriety and a big mouth, I've felt most threatened during the first Bush Administration. Whenever there's a Bush in the White House, many people die, and the rest of us are threatened. I just didn't think it would happen quite so quickly. The so-called USA Patriot Act, and the announcement of trying people in military tribunals if Bush or Rumsfeld's or Ashcroft's people think they somehow qualify as terrorists, basically, this is McCarthyism run amok.