I lived in Italy for a number of years and I was really digging around trying to get my hands dirty, trying to learn about Italian music. And what I ended up gravitating towards was this stuff from the '50s and '60s and maybe early '70s, where there were these incredibly talented pop singers that weren't using pop bands.

I got one entire song from fortune cookies (Land of Sunshine). On another one, I took words from different Frank Sinatra songs and pasted them together. Another one, I was just driving around and there was a piece of paper on the ground, so I stole it.

If a person wants to be atheistic it's his God-given right to be an atheist.

I guess I'm getting to the age where a lot of other people my age have real jobs, and when they're hard-up they refer to an old-timer like me.

I am no one to be a purist.

Diamanda Galás, the avant-weird performance artist... 'The devil's wife,' someone calls her. Faith No More loves Diamanda Galás.

I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm not because of the meaning.