I didn't want to be told what to do. I don't want to water down my music to fit into their formats. I know what rock and roll is to me, but everything's turning into one big commercial.

I make decisions based on my work, not based on meetings with my business managers, who I don't like to meet.

I'm not a big fan of Robert Plant's lyrics or his singing.

I didn't want to be told what to do. I don't want to water down my music to fit into their formats. I know what rock and roll is to me, but everything's turning into one big commercial.

Being a pop artist or making music like a jingle or something - I don't do that.

How many new rock stars have come around that have anything to say at all? Guys where you even want to know what they're thinking? Are they thinking? Where did it go astray?

I like unkempt; I don't mind if I have holes in my jacket or whatever. I think people should look more the way they feel.

I never thought I'd be on the cover of the 'Atlanta Journal' unless I killed someone.

I'm interested in authentic experience and the essence of that creative place, and where those myths begin and where they become real on any level.

I'm not interested in a persona.

I'm the weirdo. There have been multitudes of times in my career where I could have taken an easier road or a more commercial path, and I've been just like, that's not gonna make me happy.

If you had told me at 45 years old that I would have to go on tour to get rest, I would've said, 'That's not how it works.' But nothing can be more gratifying. I'm a very hands-on dad.

In 2000, I fell in love. I had never felt anything like that before in my life. It kind of took me over.

It's funny, after a while, you get tired of having to fight someone because they don't like the way you look.

Life is different than it was in the Nineties. I'm a dad, and there are other things I have to get done in an afternoon than just being an artist.

My music is how I feel, and that's changed from being twenty years old to being forty-three years old.

No matter what, I'm always interested in making music.

Now as a musician, if you have it within you, you can create your own reality. Believe me, it's a novelty.

Part of getting older is realizing that you can integrate all these different areas of your life, rather than the adolescent mindset, which for me lasted a long time, which says, 'It's all or nothing.'

Right now, I've never been more impressed by the new bands that we meet. I may be 10, 20 years older, but we're all on the same page about culture, music and life.

Since the early Nineties it's been very fashionable to say, 'It's all about the music.'

Singing isn't always about being on key; it's about emotionality.

The counterculture has nothing to do with Dolce & Gabbana having a 'Hippy Summer' or something. Street kids, and kids who want to live in any sort of counter-cultural experience other than what's being presented by the mainstream media or political climate, or 'normal' cultural climate, are never going to look like that.

There have been multitudes of times in my career where I could have taken an easier road or a more commercial path, and I've been just like, 'That's not gonna make me happy.'

What I had to learn was, that I'm only responsible for my perception of things. The world's not out to get you. That's not the way it works.

When I think about the real pioneers of the psychedelic movement in a musical sense, not just the culture, everything had a handmade sort of vibe to it. We're inventing our culture as we move along into this.

With time and experience comes a different perception of what's going on around you.

Part of getting older is realizing that you can integrate all these different areas of your life rather than the adolescent mindset which for me lasted a long time which says Its all or nothing.

Musicians playing together, it's a conversation, and ideally I want our conversation to be really intriguing and interesting and beautiful.

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.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.