In the beginning, there was noise. Noise begat rhythm, and rhythm begat everything else.

When the Grateful Dead needed a quality sound system to deliver our sonic payload, I learned electronics and speaker design.

I hated science in high school. Technology? Engineering? Math? Why would I ever need this? Little did I realize that music was also about science, technology, engineering and mathematics, all rolled into one.

Life is about rhythm. We vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood, we are a rhythm machine, that’s what we are.

The point is that the arts are important enough to have influenced the greatest minds and talents we know. Albert Einstein said that if he were not a physicist, he would probably be a musician.

The Grateful Dead were very kind. It was Santa Claus. It did good things. It allowed other people to benefit. The benefits that we played were enormous, and we played free. So you've got a band that loves to play free, and that was a wonderful thing.

The musical mystery is: How do you marry tuned percussion and voice? On a metaphorical level, everything that's really important - like the clouds, the sky and the earth - is a giant mystery.