Rhythms, beats, etc., are fundamentally central to my creative drive: my first instrument was the drums, nearly every band I have been involved in or at the helm of, is driven by rhythm, my band is driven entirely by rhythm, machine rhythm, and the purpose of the rock instrumentation is literally to speak the beats, to emulate the rhythms with guitars and bass, with very little articulation, and without being 'progressive'.

I know a lot of mainstream hip-hop people, have been listening to things like Aphex Twin for years. When somebody first played me some of that album, I was just like, "Woah!"

I'd always loved hip-hop.

I can't even listen to Swans anymore. It doesn't do it for me at all, but I absolutely adore the early records and, on that same token, I wouldn't in any way wish for them to come back and repeat themselves.

I've never been a huge prog fan. My background is punk. My background is learning how to play a bar chord and listen to Discharge records when I was a kid.

When I first started making music, for about the first 10 years, I was always the young kid. Everyone referred to me as such in any band.

Rhythms, beats, etc., are fundamentally central to my creative drive: my first instrument was the drums, nearly every band I have been involved in or at the helm of, is driven by rhythm, my band is driven entirely by rhythm, machine rhythm, and the purpose of the rock instrumentation is literally to speak the beats, to emulate the rhythms with guitars and bass, with very little articulation, and without being 'progressive'.