'Punk' doesn't mean Mohawks and safety pins. It's about not conforming.

I'm good with telling people what I think, too, but I don't know why people are so content to treat each other poorly.

Advice? Focus on the craft. Study the greats. Try and understand how and why they made the writing choices they did. Then, start by copying them...just as an exercise. See if you can do similar things. Learn how to write a song like so and so. Then, when you've done that, write a song like yourself. Learn to color within the lines before going outside them.

Theres no amount of money that makes you feel better when people think of you as a joke or a hack or a failure or ugly or stupid or morally empty.

I think writing is a much more personal thing.

No one's busy thinking bad things about you. They're all too busy thinking bad things about themselves.

I used to work in a record store. I'm kind of a record nerd.