I start writing, pull whatever images happen to occur to me and make up a story, instead of starting with details that are real and I know of and going from there.

I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much.

Giving up and doing something else (nursing, for me) was exactly what eventually led me to making music that other people wanted to hear.

I like a lot of hardcore, but it's just a genre about which I don't have much to say. It's kind of a thing where, unless you're active in the hardcore community, what could you have to say of value about it? It resists criticism because it's not just a style but an entrance into several different worlds of ideas- political, philosophical, societal. The music is really only part of the whole scene. In that sense, the music doesn't change much because it shouldn't: It needs to be there as a signal that you're entering into a certain discursive mode, maybe.

Back in the 90s, if you did mail order in music, you could make a good living doing it if you could hustle.

Young people like to feel self-righteous, like they're on the right side of things.

When you know where somebody is, you know the most important thing about them.