I remember swallowing my tooth up in a high chair, but I definitely don't remember the first time I played bass. It was like, back there!

I think anytime you set out to start doing something, it's always a difficult thing. It's a theory of a blank sheet of paper, for an artist; It's a challenge to put yourself in that position in life, and even in your mind, to put the two together. But you have to, and so that's what you do. I tend to look at it as less than a problem than a process.

Japoneese people take themselves very serious and you can see it by everything they do - it's like a different part of the scale or spectrum in being a human, and it's something we're not used to seeing in America. And then when you see it, you do have the moments of infatuation; you get caught up in it, but there's so much more to it.

I remember swallowing my tooth up in a high chair, but I definitely don't remember the first time I played bass. It was like, back there!

I don't know if I can handle living in Tokyo. I feel like the culture shock would be so intense, especially with the service industry in America - you can't make up for that. Once you get a chance to travel a lot, you start to realize when that waitress comes back and asks you if you want some more to drink, that's an important moment. Nobody else does that!

You don't have to just hit nails with hammers, you know; you can use a hammer to beat somebody's brains in, to make armor or break a car window. You can do all kinds of things with your instrument outside of its surface purpose. My bass is my crutch but the best crutch I could have.

When I was younger, I was always a musician that could play by ear better than I could analytically.