But if you want to be in a band and write music, then you should just be in a band and write music.

I'm not into solos, I'm into lyrics.

I think putting labels on people is just an easy way of marketing something you don't understand.

I use Gibson guitars; I prefer the Les Paul custom.

I'm a bass player from way back and Paul is a guitar player and we've been in many bands.

I think people like Steve Vai are so boring.

All the art for Tool is done by the me and the band.

The Melvins are grunge.

If you become addicted and a junkie, well, that's your fault.

I'm not a good guitar player.

We have meetings with our record label to tell them how to market us.

My approach is to be part of a band that makes music, not hit songs.

We're more into expressing ourselves than making radio hits.

I mean, Tool has a style, but we try to make all our songs sound different from each other.

I seriously do not think Nirvana is grunge.

That's the thing I like about my sound. It's real raw and very unsafe compared to a solid state kind of sound.

But if you want to be in a band and write music, then you should just be in a band and write music.

I personally don't like to use as many effects because when you play live, something always goes wrong.

With four perfectionists in the band, we have a hard time reaching perfection.

I have a record company starting. It's called Flesh Records and I'm putting together music for porno movies.

I haven't listened to much music lately; I've been out of it.

If I play anything that sounds like a solo, it's gonna sound like a lyric.

I'm not a geek about equipment, I just know what I like.

I'm my own worst critic and I think everyone in the band is a perfectionist.

I've never worried about how long the song is.

As far as the grunge thing, there are three bands from Seattle that I would call true grunge.

Doing the stereotypical solo bores me.

I listen to Helmet - and I love Helmet, they're a great band - but every song sounds the same.

We could have gone with much bigger labels and more money, but we wanted to go with a company that is LA based, all in the same building, and really understands what the artists want.

When we played with the Rollins Band, we'd keep songs going until we felt like ending it.

I've always dabbled on guitar, but never took lessons.

That's what I love about our music - it'll never be a hit because you can't dance to it.

I played violin and got into that Suzuki program in the second grade.

We wanted to take as much time and effort making the video as we did the song.

Many of the songs on Undertow were written at the time Opiate came out.

Different people get different things out of the images. It doesn't matter what it's about, all that matters is how it makes you feel.

As far as the grunge thing there are three bands from Seattle that I would call true grunge.

It is always easier to label than understand.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.