In our country there's never been a successful progressive struggle that did not have a soundtrack, whether it was the civil rights movement, workers' rights movement, women's rights movement. There's got to be songs at the barricades, and those are the kinds of songs that I try to write.

You can kiss my Kiss-loving ass because Kiss was never a critic's band. It was a people's band.

I literally integrated the small town of Libertyville, Illinois. I was the first person of color to reside within its borders.

In my own way, I was a rebellious kid.

I don't believe that the Democratic party has anything to do with the Left. We have two political parties in the US: a right wing party and a right centrist party. That's the Democrats. I laugh when people describe Barack Obama as a socialist president. As a socialist musician, I'll tell you when we have a socialist president. We don't have one now, not even close.

When real substantive change happens it's the people who watch your show, they're the ones that make it happen. It's people whose names are not highlighted in history books. They're the ones that stand up in their place and time to make change.

What is poverty, if not violence. Like, the number of people who die every year from starvation and from hunger and poverty is in the tens of millions.