I still think of myself as punk, because the way I became empowered to play music is entirely due to punk bands.

I think we all have a certain number of "coming of age" songs, and then a writer has to expand and grow into more varied and specific themes. And the music industry is, like Jawbreaker says, "selling kids to other kids," so it makes sense that those early songs in a writer's life are often the ones that catch people's ears, and later work is more difficult and less immediate.

In this frightening, anxious time to be alive it can be liberating to remember that nothing lasts forever. That can focus and invigorate our hopes.

I try to write lyrics that will be able to function on their own if they get separated from the music. But I wouldn't want to take anything away from poets, who work without the frames songwriters get from melody, and I think lyrics should be considered as their own thing.

I still think of myself as punk, because the way I became empowered to play music is entirely due to punk bands.

One of the wonderful things about music these days is that it's less cliqueish.

In my mind I still qualify as punk, though I know four out of five punks would disagree.