My mother passed at the end of the Circus tour. After that I really needed to take some time and just chill out and get my head together.

The way I was raised and the people that I grew up around for the most part were very humble people, and I appreciate all that they taught me, and their energy and their magnanimity help keep me grounded.

I’ll be quite frank with you — I didn’t know about Hunger Games — so when I’m telling kids and they say, ‘Who are you playing?’ and I say Cinna, they go, ‘Oh you’re playing the gay guy.’ That was an actual answer. I’ve never brought that up yet. That’s how they perceived it. So I thought about it, and I read the book and I don’t see that he is or isn’t [gay]. He’s a designer, he’s a stylist, he has gold eyeliner—that doesn’t mean anything either way.

I don't like to approach people that much. There's been times when I wanted to say something to somebody, in a quick moment, but didn't. Then you think, man, who knows?

After listening to "Machine Gun" I have to take a nap.

Our music is always a reflection of where we are in a society. That's what enables so many people to do what they do. So my advice is to work at your craft. Be the best you can be at your craft and do it sincerely. Even in the world we live in today, that will give you longevity. At the end of the day, I want the quality of my work to stand, not how much I did.

I honestly don't remember how I wrote or did the songs. Or the sessions. They all become very much a blur. And each album is like that. It may be that there are different locations, it may take longer, shorter, or whatever, but it's always something that just happened.