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.

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.

When I was living in Boston I worked in this store that played the college radio station. I had to listen to it all day, and I didn't care for most of it.

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.

Actual patriotism has to do with loving a place enough to try and improve it.

When I was younger, bands helped me connect to part of my humanity; bands that had nothing to do with anything political helped to form me. There's a correlation in that: If people can connect to music, maybe they can connect to each other.

I studied scriptural interpretation, which is more about how people get meaning out of texts, looking at stuff in the Old Testament - Muslims, Christians, Jews, different interpretations of the same texts.