Speaking of stage freight. I was terrified! It was in NOLA at an all ages show. I was wearing Jeans, a Van Halen t-shirt, and a bandana on my neck. Once I gripped that microphone stand, I did not let go! I plugged my microphone into a guitar FX pedal. Then at the end of the a Black Sabbath song we were covering, I hit the guitar pedal. It was horrific!

And it seems to be today, image is a real important thing once again.

I tried to take heavy metal... and balled it up and chopped it in half and really tried to create a new form of energy. I really tried to re-shape extreme music as I see it through my eyes.

To me, I'm for a band whose forefront is the music.

You gotta look beyond the mainstream... the mainstream'll drown you, you know? There's always a pulse in the underground that I love. And the pulse in the underground is what keeps heavy metal alive.

You can only exist as far as your mind will allow you to exist, and I think chronic pain will stop time dead in its tracks. You feel like you're the only one, and how unfair it is, and a million different feel-sorry-for-yourself type feelings.

I've heard too many times where people say that I'm this ultra-serious guy. In truth, I've got an extremely absurd sense of humor. I thrive on the absurd - I love it.