A musicians or artists responsibility is a simple one, and that is, through your music to tell the truth.

The skin you're in makes choices for you...

If aliens came down and challenged us to a Battle of the Bands to decide the fate of Planet Earth, I would feel very confident putting early Van Halen forward as our champion.

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.

I'd say that one area where my political views have remained unchanged is that, I am opposed to the government spying on everybody.

I feel fortunate to have made records during an era where people actually bought music. But I have friends in struggling up-and-coming bands now that will certainly never be able to pay the rent, because music has been devalued.

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.