I dont think gender is aesthetically defining for me.

Kindness to me is only powerful if it has the cruel streak behind it. If someone is kind all the time under all circumstances, they're just simple-minded. Kindness is only worth something if you have the cruel streak to back it up.

I think that if you have a strong narrative, if the idea of the song can be boiled down to the basics, it won't change that much.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized. Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that. That's why I write the way I do.

So you eat, you sleep, and then this wonderful child comes out, but you don't feel like you have any control over that process, over her, over her character and who she is.

Some girls are taught to be sexy.

I didn't go out looking for fights as a kid, but if it was necessary, I'd fight. Fighting was a daily thing where we lived.