I mean I have had a very combative relationship with critics because I'm very impatient with people that don't give my work the respect I feel it deserves.

People are great. But there's people who you get together with and you talk and you go away feeling energized, you feel inspired. And then there's people who you talk with and you go away feeling horrible, feeling drained, feeling like you're incapable of doing anything. Those people are psychic vampires and I now stay away from them.

When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way

I have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way

Well, in Japan, I have got a group of musicians that I have worked with a lot, that concentrate just on the hardcore stuff, say, that Naked City has been working on. We have like a repertoire of sixty songs now.

It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen.

I have a very beautiful life with great friends and I look forward to waking up every day. Every day is a vacation but every day is a workday. I don't want to take vacations because music is my life and if I escape from music, that's the same thing as death. So a vacation is death to me. Sitting on the beach for a week is my idea of hell. That would kill me.