I was a teenager, we were pretty much fully indoctrinated, thanks to sexual scare tactics. I remember so many public-health commercials with a B-actor in a fake alley background warning us to use protection or telling us the only real safe choice was abstinence. We were highly frightened of sex from day one. There was no free-swinging '90s.

Punk-rock records came out and you bought whatever you could find. But Devo didn't happen for another three years. Sex Pistols didn't tour the States until '78. At that time, for me, it was really about CBGB, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, the Ramones, and Television.

I've never written a song that's hopeless. I'm not a hopeless person. I'm crazily optimistic. I crazily see the good in people. I crazily see the way out of a terrible situation. I crazily try to be the diplomat. If there are two warring factions in my life, I want them to agree to disagree at the very least.

At the [teenage] time, I did have an inkling of my sexuality. And I had an inkling that I was different from other people in ways beyond my sexuality. But I didn't get into music because I thought, Oh, these people will understand me.

They spoke truth and a lot of people listened.... that voice, Kurt we miss you.

My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.

There are people that very strongly identify themselves as gay and then lesbian, and then I think there are a lot of people who are kind of some percentage or some version of that.