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

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.

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.