There's the idea that you have to know how to solve the world's problems in order to feel that something is morally wrong. I'm always back and forth between optimism and depression about the situation.

I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. The thing that's always been interesting to me about religion is that compared to the more modern spirituality, the West Coast pseudo-Buddhist thing that people go for these days, actual Buddhism and Islam have been looking at these philosophical questions, at really hard questions, for a long time. There's a lot of stuff that philosophy doesn't talk about, and in the secular world, a lot of times, people don't talk about these ideas, and that was always really interesting for me.

I think of hip hop as a mass media, radio, MTV thing. It’s been extremely relevant over the last 10 years and rock music is just not anymore—-a tear rolls down my cheek as I say that.

I think you have to want to be really famous. It's a lot easier to sabotage your career than to have a career to sabotage.

A lot of stuff is dark in a way, but unless you're really looking at a situation for what it actually is, it's hard to be hopeful - or meaningless to be hopeful about it unless it's actually based in a real possibility.

What I miss [about church] is being forced to be in community with people that aren't the same as me.

It would get really alienating, to have my face be the face of a cause. So much just comes down to the songs. I just want to give us the opportunity to write great songs. Even our work in Haiti is limited by how good our songs are. We just need to get rid of as much of the bullshit as possible, so we can have a life, so we have something to write about.