The most powerful music is music with purpose.

Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

If you want to change the world right now, it’s not so much a secret how you do it. You put the secrets of a criminal government on the Internet.

Music and the arts feed our souls, but a decent wage puts food on the table. Musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations are a potent force to fight for social justice.

There are literally billions of people on the planet who live in an unimaginable poverty that's not in any way different from the plight of the people in Orchid. And you can't have the splendor of Rodeo Drive without the sweatshops of Indonesia; those two things go hand in hand.

I didn't choose to be a guitar player. That was something that felt like it was chosen for me. And with that blessing and curse, I, throughout my entire career, it's been my job to weave my convictions into my vocation. And whether I'm standing in the streets of Chicago or the Occupy Wall Street or in Madison, Wisconsin, my job is to steel the backbone of people on the frontlines of social justice struggles, and to put wind in sails of those struggles. And people who are fighting on a, on a daily basis, at a grass roots level, for the things that I believe in.

There's a lot of injustice in the world and it's what I sing about in my music and what I try to confront in my life as an activist.