Because I'm associated with an avant-garde sensibility, people think I'm looking down on popular culture, but I don't want to be part of a new elitism.

I would like to think that the singer is the butterfly, and the drummer was just the little grub in the ground, working to become a caterpillar

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

When I lost the use of my hi-hat and bass drum legs, I became basically a singer. I was a drummer who did a bit of singing, and then I became a singer who did a bit of percussion.

I looked at what adults were doing and how they wanted to earn money, and I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to go away.

I don't find the business easy. The moment you start talking about the business, you start sounding like someone in Spinal Tap.

I consider myself a sit-down comedian really, as much as anything else. I love comedy. Life is a cosmic joke.