I am doing everything humanly possible to try and get well, but lately things have just kept getting worse.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them, just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

Reactive arthritis is something I've been dealing with for nearly a year.

Touring doesn't kill me and I can handle it.

We never considered ourselves to be a good band or anything, we just thought we were playing for fun and we wanted to play music that sounded like Black Sabbath or Soundgarden or the music we were into at that time.

It makes it hard to get over a certain period of your life when you are constantly revisiting it every night.

So I went and visited a doctor and he diagnosed me with reactive arthritis.

There are no big groupie fans or anything.

I have not really experienced any significant conflict with anyone in regard to my choice to be vegan, although going out to eat is hard sometimes.

None of us are really dumb and none of us are really smart. We're in the middle.

I get very anxious and am scared in crowds and things like that.

I have never had a social life, don't ever want one because it's boring. I'm just not very good with people, and you meet people every night who expect you to be this rock star with these developed social skills, which I don't have.

With our first two records we backed ourselves into a hole musically.

I start sweating and shaking and having panic attacks if I am not at home.

We were perceived as a post-grunge band.

We were really motivated to do something with this record overseas, even though I hate touring.

Kinda when I stopped eating was on our second album, just as it felt like everything was so out of control.

The touring for this album was definitely going to be the most intense touring we've done.

I wrote... Neon Ballroom in that time where I hated music, really everything about it, I hated it.

I am very scared of being outside my home for long periods of time.

I try to stay positive by focusing on how much I'll appreciate my health if I get better.

Though, since the first record, I've dramatically changed my expectations for our records.

Basically, the reason I'm vegan is because when I was about 16 or 17 years old, I began to understand that we don't need to contribute to the killing and exploitation of animals to feed our bodies correctly.

We met The Cult and were talking to them for a while. We went a few places with Offspring.

I know if I don't tour people will forget the record and you run a high risk of the record failing.

I'm lucky the arthritis happened at the time that it did because of the record.

I think I definitely got scared by the second or third time a doctor told me I was dying.

I am doing everything humanly possible to try and get well, but lately things have just kept getting worse.

I'm always active in trying to educate people when it comes to eating animal products, testing on animals, and the health benefits of being vegan, although I'm probably not the best person to be talking about the latter at the moment.

It just makes everything more pleasurable when you've got someone that emotionally is there to rely on.

I have a theory because I was being beaten up a lot by people outside of school, it was almost like if I could make myself sick enough they'd take sympathy on me.

I never really paid attention to sales until the second record.

When we first began and I was 14, my influences were the stuff that was in my parent's record collection like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.

There was three or four years of my life where I hated myself and you know, would have quite happily ended it.

I had to try and find a way to express happiness without sounding corny.

People don't understand sarcasm, like, they take everything too seriously. People need to lighten up and go ice skating.

Mars has long exerted a pull on the human imagination. The erratically moving red star in the sky was seen as sinister or violent by the ancients: The Greeks identified it with Ares, the god of war; the Babylonians named it after Nergal, god of the underworld. To the ancient Chinese, it was Ying-huo, the fire planet.

My grandfather was a polygamous man, and he had two wives, and between him and his two wives, we are about 200 or so in our family.

Its Saturday I plan on doing nothing and plenty of it.

People on the streets are ready for hockey.

Brother even by our mothers dust I charge you do not betray me to your mirth or hate.

You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

I've tried actively to define myself and redefine myself, and not be pigeonholed.

It’s such a poisonous emotion because, at the end of the day, you’re no better off, you’re unhappier, and the person you’re jealous of is still successful or good-looking or whatever they are.

Don't put new wine into old bottles

You could play the blues like it was a lonesome thing - it was a feeling. The blues is nothing but a story... The verses which are sung in the blues is a true story, what people are doing... what they all went through. It's not just a song, see?

The good thing about working alone is I get a lot done and I can experiment more. The bad thing is I miss out on the gregarious, social way that most musicians work.

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.