We were very fortunate to have a a little time in history when LSD was still legal and were able to experiment with drugs just like we were doing with music.

Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life, and to equate drugs with death is a facile comparison.

You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.

What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place.

Western ears have a hard time hearing anything that isn't in four-four time. A lot of cultures experience music in five-eight, for example, five-four.

I don't feel that one instrument has more weight than others. Any sound that you can produce adds to your vocabulary of possibilities.

Either you were a hoodlum, or you were a puddle on the sidewalk.