As long as bands are still out there slaving away in the garage and putting out their own records and just pushing the envelope for how songs should be written or how they should be played, punk will never die.

Because we take these huge long breaks, and then I just kind go, "Okay, fine, this is the way that I've chosen to live my life, and if the band now fades into obscurity, so be it, that's my decision." But then we come back and it's still as big as ever, or bigger. It's always been a surprise to me, that it worked out that way.

Part of 'Beyond The Music' is also the notion that no matter what came of us, or the band, the most important thing for us ended up being the friendships.

We like to be punks. We like to still be kind of edgy and if being edgy means you might teeter on that line of being inappropriate, I'm still willing to teeter on that line, even at my age. But some of them go over that line and you've gotta draw that line somewhere.

I think my science career had an arc to it that peaked in, let's say 2003/2004. I was in hog heaven, working in a corporation, getting paid pretty good money and doing really exciting research. And we had just done the Cool To Be You record, and I said well, we'll put this record out, but I can't tour it because I just want to do science. That's my gig, my future.

I still think punk's around. It's been pushed into the mainstream and it gets harder to draw that line between what's pop and what's punk.

There's something wrong with the system when you've got someone who can provide so much to a company and can be enthusiastic, but isn't management material or whatever. So a lot of that just gets defined as the person who speaks with the loudest voice and gets up there with the most arrogance and overly confident, chest-beating approach. Those are the ones that are going to get the golden ring.