At the risk of sounding pedestrian, I'll be completely honest: the first thing I do in the morning is check Google News, partially because it seems sort of random and unbiased and partially because I tend to stay in hotels that don't necessarily have the fastest Internet connections.

I found it incredibly disheartening that in the late '90s, suddenly pop culture became even more misogynistic and more homophobic, and so I criticized Eminem for having lyrics that were egregiously homophobic and egregiously misogynistic.

Never have public feuds with anyone who's surrounded by people who carry guns.

That’s why I make music. When I listen to my favorite music made by other people, that’s what it does to me. So as a musician, I’m just trying to do the same thing with music I make. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But when someone comes to me and says the music I’ve made has affected them emotionally, that’s the most gratifying part of my job.

It will be interesting to see what the long term fruits of our national apathy will be, 'cos so far they've been pretty foul.

I was on food stamps until I was 18 and became an adult.

I've made records that everyone has hated and I've loved, and made records that everyone has loved and I've deemed, at best, mediocre.