It's really important for the bass and the drums to somehow blend.

I'm always interested in mixing technology and music. You know, maybe I'll have a MIDI bass pickup at some point, I don't really think that's the direction I would want to go.

The worst thing I could be thinking is how could I be a cool bass player.

In order to have that incredible groove that makes you dream you have to think not of the groove, but of the dream.

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.

I built all the speaker cabinets myself.

Right after I graduated, my girlfriend, who I had been going out with for five years, dumped me, and my grandmother died.

I'm not really satisfied with anything I have written to date.

It does make sense to put on some songs that are relatively short, because radio usually only plays songs that are less than 4 or 5 minutes.

I've written some poetry, but...songs have to be more poetic, and I've really gotten to this non-poetic sort of writing.

I like referring to the saxophone and having a guitar lick instead. Same with the cymbals; having the cymbals and not playing cymbals.

When you say "I" and "my" too much, you lose the capacity to understand the "we" and "our".

A sibling is a friend for life, but they are a friend for life that you are forced to have. And like anything that you are forced to do, occasionally people will drive you crazy.

If you do not have goals of your own you are doomed forever to work to achieve the goals of someone else.

American future lies in the East. The great free markets of the Pacific Rim are the American destiny.

The discoveries that one can make with the microscope amount to very little, for one sees with the mind's eye and without the microscope the real existence of all these little beings.

Isn't everyone hiding something?

I wouldn't say that I'm the greatest guitarist ever. I'd say probably that I'm the greatest guitarist sitting in this chair.

Nothing has ever looked like that ever in all of human history.

Just keep focusing on the work that you're doing. Focus on what's in front of you today. And don't read the papers, just go campaign. Just do your thing. Talk to people directly

I'm in a state of my life when the essential is very important to me. I don't like long songs with complicated arrangements and breaks anymore.