When I was a kid growing up in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business.

What they teach you in school doesn't prepare you for life. Textbooks don't compare to living in the real world. Rock and roll teaches you how to live.

The Eagles and the Captain and Tennille ruled the airwaves, and we were the answer to it.

We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard... Everything was 10th-generation Led Zeppelin... Overproduced, or just junk. We missed music like it used to be.

I hate to blow the mystique, but at the time we really liked bubblegum music, and we really liked the Bay City Rollers. Their song 'Saturday Night' had a great chant in it, so we wanted a song with a chant in it: 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go!'. 'Blitzkrieg Bop' was our 'Saturday Night'.

For me, punk is about real feelings. It's not about, 'Yeah, I am a punk and I'm angry.' That's a lot of crap. It's about loving the things that really matter: passion, heart and soul.

I think it's a nice payback. There aren't many people that kind of give back to artists that were their inspiration. Most people think they're . . . they're very self bloated.