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I Don't Know If God Would Agree With Me, But Believing In God Is Kind Of Unimportant When Compared To Believing In Yourself. Because If You Go With The Idea That God Gave You A Mind And An Ability To Judge Things, Then He Would Want You To Believe In Yourself And Not Worry About Believing In Him. By Believing In Yourself You Will Come To The Conclusion That Will Point To Something.

-Billy Corgan

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I Don't Know If

Billy Corgan

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I Don't Know If God Would Agree With Me, But Believing In God Is Kind Of Unimportant When Compared To Believing In Yourself. Because If You Go With The Idea That God Gave You A Mind And An Ability To Judge Things, Then He Would Want You To Believe In Yourself And Not Worry About Believing In Him. By Believing In Yourself You Will Come To The Conclusion That Will Point To Something.

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I Think God Is The Most Unexplored Territory In Rock And Roll Music.

I Like My Home And I Like The Nature.

I Do Not Think Wrestling Is Going To Save The World.

There Is Something Mighty Suspicious About Declaring An Emergency For Something That Has Yet To Show Itself To Be A Grand Pandemic.

The Ideology Of The Smashing Pumpkins Was Ultimately More Valuable Than The Music Of The Smashing Pumpkins. That's What Critics Can't Put Their Finger On.

That's The Real Endeavor: To Try To Create That Direct Conduit From The Pure Consciousness Of Your Creative Voice To The Person Who's A Craftsman Who Can Go Into The World And Consistently Deliver New Things Worth Paying Attention To.

I'm Not Going To Die Glamorously. I'll Probably Be Eating A Twinkie, Take A Bite, And Fall Over.

I Rummage Around In Artistic Things From The Past. If You Don't Understand The Context, They Wouldn't Make Any Sense. I Rummage Around In Conceptual Ideas Of The Future, But If You Don't Know The Source Of The Thinking, [it] Wouldn't Make Any Sense.

This Is Not A Reaction Against A Negative World. It's A Response To A Negative World.

In The Beginning, Though, I Have To Admit That I Did Have A Chip On My Shoulder. I Did Want To Prove Everyone Wrong. But After I Went Through The Process And Came Out The Other Side, It Wasn't About Anyone Else.

Once A Pumpkin, Always A Pumpkin.

My Father Was A Guitar Player, And I Was Raised With A Super High Standard Of What Good Guitar Playing Was.

Everybody Can Close Their Eyes, Picture A Dream House Or A Perfect Place [where] They'd Like To Have A Picnic. But Actually Creating It - How Do You Create Something From Nothing? Anyone Who's Creative Understands That That's The Magic, That's The Alchemy.

Actually, I Was Having Dinner With Michael [stipe, Of R.e.m.] When Our Second Album Went Platinum, Which Up Until That Point Was The Highest Success We'd Ever Had. And He Turned To Me During Dinner And Said, 'welcome To The Deep Waters, Kid.' I'll Never Forget That.

Do I Belong In The Conversation About The Best Artists In The World? My Answer Is Yes, I Do.

I'm Irish And I Was Born On St. Patrick's Day. I'm Lucky Sevens.

Rock In The Mainstream Culture Has Lost A Lot Of Its Mojo.

Mainstream Culture

I'm Sort Of Like A Lame, Single Guy In A Red Sports Car.

Personally, I Think Jesus Would Like Better Bands.

Fur Is A Contentious Issue. Meat Is A Contentious Issue. Gmos Are A Contentious Issue. I Think This Whole Thing Going On About Whether Or Not Products Should Be Labeled If They Have Gmos In Them - I, As A Consumer, Would Like To Know If I'm Eating Gmo Food. If I Choose To Buy It Then It's My Choice.

If I Had Spent Fourteen Months In A Small Room With Jesus, I'd Want To Fist Fight With Him.

I'll Come In With A String Of Riffs And Direct The Musical Ideas. But You Still Need A Band And Their Input To Make The Ideas Come Alive. You Can't Underestimate Band Chemistry.

People Always Called The Cure Gloomy, But Listening To The Cure Made Me Happy. There Was Something About The Gloominess That Gave Me Comfort, And I Think We're The Same Way.

If The Next Record Is No Better Than Gish, Then We've Failed.

There's Something Going On Right Now In America, Where The American Spirit Or Character Is Reasserting Itself Around Liberty. I Think It's An Important Time, And I'm Trying To Document That As An Artist. If I Just Filter What I Read Through The Media, If I Just Go Through What I Read Through The Media, I'm Not Really In Touch With The World I Grew Up In. I Know There's A Gap There, I Talk To My Relatives, I Talk To People I Meet Traveling Around, And Their Mind Is On Something Completely Different.

If You've Sold Over A Million Records, You Are Not Punk Rock, You Are Milking The System For Everything That It's Worth.

I Think When I Listen To Old Records, It Puts Me Back In The Atmosphere Of What It Felt Like To Make The Record And Who Was There And What The Room Looked Like. It's More A Sensory Memory.

All I Can Go On Is My Own Value System.

Soon You Won't Even Have The Choice To Live Or Die As You Wish!

You Could Have A Zillion Facebook Followers. Those People Don't Buy Records. It's About A Hundred To One...record Companies, They Don't Have Any Money So They See Social Media As The Free Marketing...so,...'billy, Light Yourself On Fire And Stand Upside Down, And That'll Market The Record'. I've Spent A Lot Of Time Thinking About This. I Don't Think People By Records Because Of Anything That Happens On Facebook. They Buy Records Cause They're Friends Say 'i Bought This Record And I Love It'.

Rock & Roll Is Not About What You Play, It's About How You Play It.

Like Any Form Of Death, At Some Point You Just Have To Get Up And Say Yeah I'll Take It, Whatever's Gonna Happen Is Gonna Happen And Sorta Chop Your Head Off. It's Easy To Avoid All That...there's Always Another Moment, Another Girl, Another High, Another Drug, There's Always Something To Distract You.

Sometimes People Just Like Being Around Each Other, And Good Things Come Out Of That.

As Far As A Theoretical Point Of View For My Generation, I'm Probably The Most Successful Theoretician. I Mean, Double Albums And Concepts And Dresses And Major Disasters And Wonderful Successes And Yet You Don't See The Critical Review Of My Work. Why? Because It's All Focused On The Persona. Billy Corgan. But I Get To Sort Of Jump In And Be Billy Corgan. But Then I Get To Sort Of Jump Back Out And Be Like, Sensitive Man In The Corner.

About Six Months Ago, I Listened To Siamese Dream. That Was The First Time I'd Ever Really Heard My Own Album, Because I Had Separated From The Experience Of Making The Record. And It Really Moved Me. It Made Me Cry, It's So Beautiful.

I Don't Know If God Would Agree With Me, But Believing In God Is Kind Of Unimportant When Compared To Believing In Yourself. Because If You Go With The Idea That God Gave You A Mind And An Ability To Judge Things, Then He Would Want You To Believe In Yourself And Not Worry About Believing In Him. By Believing In Yourself You Will Come To The Conclusion That Will Point To Something.

I Was Playing Heavy Metal When I Was 18. I Had To Evolve Out Of That Into An Alternative Consciousness About What It Meant To Change The Way I Played Guitar, And The Kind Of Songs, And The Subject Matter, And Singing About Child Abuse, And All This Stuff. I Had To Come From Somewhere, And I Had To Take Chances To Do That.

A Good Artist Is Willing To Die Many Times Over. What's Funny Is, I've Died So Many Times.

Ultimately, Running A Band Is About The Relationships You Have With People.

If I Have Resistance To Something, It Means There's Something Wrong. The Resistance To Me Is A Sign Of Fear.

We've Turned Into A Whining Society.

If You Don't Fit Into This Kind Of Like Gossipy, Trendy, Web-hit Thingy, You're Relegated To Sort Of Second-class Celebrity Status.

Being Overly Identified With [a Certain Period Of Time] Becomes A Noose Around Your Neck, And People Don't Want You To Grow Up, They Don't Want You To Change, They Don't Want You To Evolve.

I Don't Wanna Play This Kind Of Cartoon Character Anymore.

Everything About Life Makes Me Lonely.

A Missive To All You Metal Bands, The World Is Totally Over The Rock Thing. Rock Is Deader Than It's Ever Been.

As Long As You Have Faith, You're Willing To Try To Take Another Chance. God Wants You To Amble Toward The Right Spot On The Horizon. The Idea Is That You're Willing To Get Up And Keep Moving Toward That Light.

To Re-embrace What I Once Loved About Music Has Been A Warming Process For Me, Because It's A Good, Earned Feeling Now.

Today Is The Greatest Day I've Ever Known Can't Live For Tomorrow, Tomorrow's Much Too Long.

I Have A Hard Time Thinking Of Men Trying To Sing My Songs, Because I Think My Perspective Is Definitely Feminine.

That Was A Terrible Super Bowl, I Have To Say. I Mean You Got The Big Peyton Manning Walk Off Into The Sunset Win, But What A Shnoozo.

It Was Shocking To See Nirvana Play, Because It Was Like, "here's This Little Guy With A Monster-guitar Sound." And It Was Heavier Than Black Sabbath. That Was Shocking.

I've Rarely Done Anything That's Overtly Self-destructive Without Consciously Knowing What I'm Doing. And Then Of Course, The Astute Journalist Jumps Forward And Says, "why Are You Being Calculated?" Calculated Seems To Assume A Sinister Intent. My Intent Is Always For Artistic Effect.

I Don't Think '90s Music Was As Significant As '60s Music In Terms Of Changing The World, But It Was Significant, And I Think It Was Similarly Disillusioning When You Realize The Mainstream Just Views It As Like A Curiosity.

Stay In School. Lie To Your Teachers, But Stay In School.

Around The Mid-'90s Every Hair Guy Who Would Have Been In A Hair-metal Band Got His Tattoos And Suddenly Decided He Was Alternative. It Just Became Like A Thing.

I Often Have Deer On My Property And There's A Fox And Owls. You're Not Going To See That In The City.

There's Nothing Wrong With Technology. It's When Technology Is The Story And Not The Artist, That's The Problem.

The Weird Nihilism That Permeates Mellon Collie Is Extremely Relevant To What's Going On Right Now. So Many Kids Are Intelligent And Articulate, But They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves.

I Know How Stupid People Can Be. I've Played In Front Of 5,000 People That Bought A Ticket To My Concert, And Some Guy Who's Bought A Ticket Decides He's Going To Throw A Bottle At My Head. That's A Simple Act Of Stupidity. That's Not Even Defiance.

I Think I Kind Of Approached Music With This Sort Of, Like, Weird Thing Where I Kinda Set Myself Up Where I Could Kinda Be Myself But Not Really. I Kinda Had A Backdoor Out. So If You Criticized Me, I Kinda Had My Defenses Working. And The Problem Is That Some People Seize On That As Inauthenticity, Which Is Understandable. So That's Painful Because It's Not That You're Being Inauthentic...there's A Difference Between Being A Poseur And Being Someone Who's So Emotionally Challenged They're Kind Of Just Doing Their Best To Show You What They've Got.

I Started Thinking That If Post Modernism Is About People Opening Up All Their Skeletons, I'm Going The Other Way. I Don't Want Anyone Knowing Anything About Me Anymore.

We Were Just A Little Immature In The Past. I Think We Actually Wanted To Create Difficult Situations For Ourselves Just To Be Able To Use That Emotion For Stimulation.

Difficult Situations

I Put Up With The Music Business Because I Understand That I'm In The Tradition, I'm In A Tradition That's Of Far Greater Importance Than The Business I Seem To Be In. Everywhere I Go In The World, People Ask Me About The Business That I Seem To Be In, But I'm Not Really In That Business.

The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You.

Saturn Return Is Just The Return Of Your Planets To Their Original Position.

People Try To Make A Big Deal, Like I Don't Want To Play My Old Songs. That's Not It. I Don't Want To Play My Old Songs If That's My Only Option. That's A Different Thing.

The Reason I Don't Play Any Of The Old Songs Is Because I Really Honor My Old Band, And I Think That Those Songs Are Best Served Within The Context Of That Band.

I Grew Up In The Suburbs And Basically Associate The Suburbs With Cultural Death.

I Want To Make Great Songs.

Destruction Is A True Sign Of Devotion. As I Always Tell My Girlfriend When She Threatens To Kill Me. 'you Should Kill Me And It Would Tell Me That You Love Me.

I Don't Think I'm Before My Time, I Just Don't Think I'm In My Time.

Not Let The Child Run The Circus, Just Have That Child Be The Source Of The Creative Voice.

At Some Point, You Protest Too Much They Think You're Guilty Just Because You're Protesting.

Being In A Rock Band Is Just An Excuse Not To Get A Job

My Pat Line About The Cubs And Payroll Is That The Amount Of Merchandise The Cubs Would Sell Off A World Series Championship Would More Than Cover For A Big Payroll.

I've Seen Foreigners Really Shift On Their View Of America, And That's Hard For Me To Take.

I Use Music As Some Kind Of Weird Salvation To Get Away From Life

Radiohead And Our Lady Peace Are Doing The Seven Layers Of Guitar, And I Kind Of Jumped On That Before Anyone Else Did.

Well, We Have Brought Certain Things Upon Ourselves. I've Certainly Brought Things Upon Us With My Mouth.

I Think The Original, 'they're The Next Jane's Addiction' Things That People Said About Us In The Beginning Have Been Pretty Much Wiped Out.

When I've Tried To Reinvent The Wheel, I Get Bashed For Not Doing The Familiar Things.

Familiar Things

For A 6-foot-3 Guy With No Hair And A Whiny Voice, I've Done All Right.

There's Been Someone Up Here Screaming 'landslide' For The Whole Show... Normally We Don't Play 'landslide,' But On Occasion We've Been Known To Play It... So Since This Person's Been Screaming It All Show Long... That Just About Kills The Chances Of Me Playing It Tonight, Or Ever Again.

Usually The Intention Of The Artistic Effect Is Too Sophisticated For Most People To Understand, Sort Of Like A Joke That They Don't Get So They Don't Think It's Funny.

There's A Lot Of Days Where You Feel Forgotten.

Been There, Done That, Seen It, Heard It, Pissed On It.

Been There Done That

We Had A Wonderful Time With This Kind Of Grunge Awareness, Where Suddenly Rock Was Cool Again. People Wanted To Head Loud Guitars. It Was A Great Time, And I'm Glad We Were There. But The Gimmick Part Has Worn Off.

I've Been Too Productive For Too Long, And Despite What Anybody Wants To Strip Away From Me, I Am Influential. I Am.

Instead Of Taking The 'i'm Cool, I Hope You Adore Me' Path (with My Music), I Chose The Path Of How To Connect. I Think That's The Reason A Lot Of People Feel A Deeper Connection With Our Band Than Other Bands, And I Also Feel That's Why People Polarize On Us. If You Don't Get It, It Seems Preposterous; If You Do Get It, It's Really Heavy - It Has A Weight To It.

The Things I'm Guided To Do Are Really Strange To Me.

You Will Never See The Four Original Pumpkins On Stage Ever Again, Unless It's A Hall Of Fame Thing. But You Would Never See A Tour. There's So Much Damage, There's No Way.

The Music Is All We Care About -- So If That's Bad, Then We're Bad.

Most Of My Arguments With Musicians Through The Years Have Had More To Do With Their Attitude About Music, Or Their Attitude About Their Own Lives, Or Their Personal Responsibility. Music Has Never Really Been The Big Centerpiece Of The Fight.

When Alternative Music - Which Is Supposed To Be The Standard-bearer Of Where White Rock Is Headed - Becomes Either Too Cute Or Too Manufactured, That's Just Really Not Good.

Billy [corgan] And I Used To Spend Quite A Lot Of Time Together In Los Angeles, When I First Moved There.

The Music Business - And I Guess You Could Say Any Artistic Endeavor - Usually Rewards Those Who Are On The Leading Edge Of Where Everything Is Going, But You Can't Be Too Far.

There's A Difference Between Being A Poseur And Being Someone Who's So Emotionally Challenged They're Kind Of Just Doing Their Best To Show You What They've Got.

I'm An Experimental Artist In A Field That Doesn't Celebrate Experimentation. It Celebrates Self-destruction, Which I Guess You Could Say Is A Creative Endeavor.

For Someone Who's Had The Level Of Success I've Had, There's Been Very Little Critical Review Of My Work, Which Is Pretty Fascinating.

Critical Spirit

In Our Lives In A Lot Of Ways It's All About Fake. You've Got People Wanting Things For Fake Reasons.

Every Year That Goes By, I Lose That Much More Motivation To Play Rock.

You Have To Keep Adapting To The Times. If You Kind Of Go With It, It Can Kind Of Fun.

I've Always Believed That We Could Reach Past Genre -- We Didn't Ride The Grunge Coat-tails; We've Always Been On Our Terms.

I Did 13-something Years Of Talking To Wrestlers And Promoters About Why They Did Certain Things And Why They Booked Matches A Certain Way And What They Were Thinking And Whether They Were Satisfied With The Draw. And I Got A Lot Of Insight In The Business.

I Always Thought Kurt Cobain Was The Perfect Embodiment Of The Great Alternative Guitar Player.

The Funny Thing About Me That Most People Never Really Understand Is That, At Heart, I'm Really A Jock.

What Most People Do Is Try To Find A Comfortable Persona That They're In Alignment With And The Public Likes And Appreciates Them For.

I Don't Like That The Government Is Going To Manipulate The Information To Try To Convince Me That What I'm Eating Is Not What I'm Really Eating. If People Choose To Eat Cardboard Because It's Ten Cents Cheaper, Then Let Them. That's At The Root Of Freedom. But In The Reverse, I'd Like To Know If What I'm Eating Or Consuming Or Buying Is Somehow Hurting Or Exploiting Someone In Another Part Of The Planet.

Calm, Open Debate, And Logical Thought Drive Strength To Its Maximum Effectiveness.

Gish Was The Best Representation Of Where We Were At The Time.

I'm By Nature Kind Of A Glum Person, But I'm Not A Sad Pathetic

I Mean, I'm Certainly Not A 'teaophyte,' Or Whatever The Word Would Be.

I Didn't Find Jesus. He's Been There The Whole Time.

You Have To Be Willing To Deal With The Ups And Downs Of The Music, The Ups And Downs Of The Audience.

I'm Like The Fugitive, Running From The One-armed Indie-rock Community!

The Point Is To Let The Music Be Itself. If It Doesn't Mean Anything To You, Then It's Bullsh*t.

Injuries Are Nothing To Be Ashamed About.

I Think Rock & Roll Has Prepared Me For A Lot Of Flexibility.

And The World So Hard To Understand Is The World You Can't Live Without.

When You Move Artistically, The Natural Inclination Is To Denounce Everything That's Gone Before.

If You Don't Have Some Sort Of Belief System By Which To Center Your Life, It's Hard Sometimes To Understand Why You Would Put Up With Your Family.

It's About The Girlfriend Who Left Me Last Year. I Tried To Put All My Anger In Those Words, Even Though I'm Just As Much To Blame For The Break-up. 'soma' Is Based On The Idea That A Love Relationship Is Almost The Same As Opium: It Slowly Puts You To Sleep, It Soothes You, And Gives You The Illusion Of Sureness And Security. Very Deceivable.

I'm Not Interested In Pop Art.

I Feel Completely Free To Do Whatever I Want And How I Want To Do It. I Feel Unburdened By My Past.

I Work Differently Than Most People.

I Think A Spiritual Journey Is Not So Much A Journey Of Discovery. It's A Journey Of Recovery. It's A Journey Of Uncovering Your Own Inner Nature. It's Already There.

We Are The Most Beloved And Hated Band In The World.

It's Wonderful To Read Interviews By Old Blues Guys - They Talk About All Their Influences, They Talk About Who Taught Them How To Play, And Who They Saw, And How They Were Determined To Play That Way.

We Can Look You In The Eye And Talk To You About Life, Heart, Love Rock'n'roll, Whatever, But We Do Not Have The Moral Authority To Tell People How To Vote Or What To Do With Their Bodies. We Are Just A Rock Band.

Don't Judge Yourself By Someone Else's Standards. You Will Always Lose

I Never Seemed To Fit In. But It Made Me Try To Strive For Things Ten Times Harder.

I Want People To See Me Happy.

I'm Definitely Responsible For Coming In With Some Basic Chord Changes, Or Ideas. Everybody In The Band Looks To Me To Come Up With The Basic Seed, So It's Not Very Productive To Come In With Nothing.

I Never Wanted To Leave The Smashing Pumpkins. That Was Never The Plan.

One Thing I've Learned To Appreciate As I've Gotten A Little Older Is Direct Forms Of Communication.

I Think It Would Be Very Interesting To See That Many People Would Probably Be Okay With Paying More For Services And Goods That They Felt Were More Holistically [generated]. Which Means The Death Of The Old System Which Rewarded People For Taking Advantage Of One Another.

Music Is 99% Of My Life. But I Know I Need A Break. Besides, If You Give People Too Much, They Start To Not Want It. We Need To Restrain Ourselves.

Compliments And Criticism Are All Ultimately Based On Some Form Of Projection.

I Don't Have Any Sentimental Notion About How People Are Going To Remember Me.

I Don't Think People Are Fans Of Me Because I Wrote Hit Songs. I Think They're Fans Because I'm A Lunatic Or A Weirdo. The Hit Songs Came Out Of My Idiosyncratic Personality, Not The Other Way Around.

My Earliest Memory Is Of Feeling Different. My Parents Told Me That I Wasn't Like Other Children.

There's A Lot Of Ufo Sightings In New Orleans, Which Isn't Really Too Surprising. There's A Lotta Crazy People There. The People There Lack The Intelligence To Know What They Are Seeing, So That's Why The Ufo's Go There.

It's A Simple Formula For Me Now, I Don't Play Any Song I Don't Want To Play.

You Know Americans Are Obsessed With Life And Death And Rebirth, That's The American Cycle. You Know, Awakening, Tragic, Horrible Death And Then Phoenix Rising From The Ashes. That's The American Story, Again And Again.

My Mother And I Parting Company At Four Years Old Is A Recurring Theme; Although It's Not Symbolically Necessarily Present, It's Present In All My Relationships.

Time Is Never Time At All. You Can Never Ever Leave Without Leaving A Piece Of Youth. And Our Lives Are Forever Changed. We Will Never Be The Same. The More You Change, The Less You Feel.

I'm Passionate About Creating New Systems That Are More Holistic To Humankind. What Do I Mean By That? I Mean, Create New Systems Of Business So That People With Ethics Both Exploit Their Goods And Their Gifts While Not Exploiting The Earth, Exploiting One Another.

You Can Only Be This High-powered Mojo Rock Band For So Long, Then You Just Can't Look People In The Eye. So, We've Projected Our Own Demise.

I Usually Wake Up Far After Breakfast. That's As Much As You're Going To Find Out About My Dietary Requirements Other Than Marijuana And Vodka.

I Believe That If The Tribune Company Ever Tries To Close Down Wrigley Field That You Will Have A Protest From Every Corner Of The Globe.

I'm Very Disappointed In My Country Right Now, Because I Think We've Kind Of Lost Our Moral Compass.

In A Weird Kind Of Way, Music Has Afforded Me An Idealism And Perfectionism That I Could Never Attain As Me.

I Went To See A Shaman. He Put His Hands On Me, And I Cried Like A Baby For An Hour.

All Humans Are Part Male And Part Female. The Other Side Must Be Explored To Gain Complete Understanding Ofourselves And The World We Live In. Forme, The Idea Of Having A Feminine Perspective Is A Willingness To Be Vulnerable.

The Smashing Pumpkins Was Never Meant To Be A Small Band. It Was Going To Either Be A Big Band, Or A No Band.

I Hate How In Magazine Pictures, They Always Stick Me Somewhere In The Back. It Means They Don't Think I'm The Cute One.

I Lay A Lot Of Blame At The Feet Of Dusty Baker For Not Being More Strict About Fundamentals, Which I Think Would Give The Team A Stronger Day-to-day Identity.

I Had Concussions As A Kid Playing Football And Basketball, And Know What It Feels Like And To Have Someone Say 'just Rub Some Dirt On It, And Get Back In There.'

I'd Reached A Point Where There Was A Direct Conflict Between What I Was Trying To Be And Who I Really Was.

Even If You Don't Believe In God, Exploring Fully The Idea Of A God Or Gods Should Pose No Threat To You.

I've Become A Guy Who's Like A Complaining, Whining Neurotic.

We Love Cats More Than We Love Women [with Marilyn Manson].

That's At The Root Of The Human Interaction: Fair Trade.

I Really Think It's A White, Bourgeois Idea To Pretend That You Don't Have Influences. It Seems To Be The Obsession Strictly Of White People In College.

I Met Scott Stapp When The Band Was First Coming Up, Great Guy. I Haven't Seen Him For Years, But A Great Guy.

In The Music Business I Am Surrounded By People Who Don't View Music As A Sacred Voice. They View Music As Something That They Can Use And Exploit, Often Times Lazily. They Have No Sense Of The Tradition, They Have No Sense Of Honor About Those Who Came Before And Charted The Path.

I Don't Have To Play By These Rules Or Do These Things... I Can Actually Have My Own Kind Of Version.

I Look At Other Members Of My Generation Who Have Basically Done One Thing, And One Thing Well, And Have Been Handsomely Rewarded For It.

I've Thought Many Times, 'i Can't Write This,' But On My Own Little Planet I Found The Courage To Write It Because It Was True. I Put Aside Fear Of Father Being Angry With Me. It's Hard Though; The World Pales In Comparison With The Stature Of A Parent. In Some Small-consolation Way, My Parents Feel I'm Helping People By Giving Them Something To Identify With. They Feel Proud In A Sort Of Reverse Way. My Mom's Proud Of The Fact That Lots Of Kids Look Up To Me.

Like Any Good Tree That One Would Hope To Grow, We Must Set Our Roots Deep Into The Ground So That What Is Real Will Prosper In The Light Of Love.

It's What The Mainstream Does - They Absorb Things And They Blunt The Power Of It. And So The Next Generation And The Next Generation Has To Become More Shocking And More Provocative In Order To Get Any Rise Out Of Anybody.

Thinking About The Future And Thinking About The Past Is Really Only A Way Of Ignoring The Present.

Why Is It That All Non-conformists Look The Same?

My Step-mom Would Tell Me That She Would Get Complaints From Adults That I Stared Too Much At Them.

In 1992, With The Weight Of A Perceived World On Our Shoulders, We Disappeared Into A Parking Garage To Write The Songs That Would Change The Course Of Our Lives Forever. 'siamese Dream' Represents All Of Our Dreams Coming True, While The Dreams Of A Happy Band Fell Apart.

My Version, Of Course, Is Not This Flag-waving, Let's All Get On The Jesus Train And Ride Out Of Hell. I'm Not That Kind Of Guy. It's An Embrace That Life Is Good, Worth Living And Yeah, It's Not Easy, But There Are More Pluses Than Minuses.

It's Important For People To Talk And Get Beyond The Wall Of Facebook And Social Media.

Heavy Metal Is A Universal Energy -- It's The Sound Of A Volcano. It's Rock, It's Earth Shattering. Somewhere In Our Primal Being We Understand.

We Have A Problem With Any Labels That People Try To Hang On Us, Because All It Does Is Drag You Down.

The Great Thing About Rock N' Roll Is, If You Want To Fight - Like, Fight The System, Fight The Man, Fight The Government, Fight The People In Front Of You - It's Don Quixote All Over Again. You're Really Chasing Windmills.

The Difficulty, If You're In The World - And This Is For Anybody - Is The Eventual Disappointment That Comes With Having To Meet Other Versions Of Reality. Imposed Systems That Ask You To Compromise Or Sacrifice Things Which You Consider Holy Or Sacred.

You Give Me A @#$%& Kazoo And I'll Write You A Good Song.

I Realize I'm A Mirror.

When You Present People With Things From The Heart And From The Soul, They Make Better Choices: They Make Better Choices About Their Bodies, They Make Better Choices About Their Partners, They Make Better Choices About The Environment.

These Days You're Not Just Competing With The Tedium, You're Competing With The Cellphone.

It Makes Me Crazy To Think That Somebody Might Attack My City Or Any Other City.

Everybody Likes To Run Around On Their Phones, Including Me, But We Don't Always Want To Hear Who's Sweating Somewhere In Some Non-air-conditioned Factory To Create Those Things So That They Can Keep The Prices Down.

Indie World Won't Have Me, And Mainstream World Treats Me Like An Alien, But Here I Am Still Floating Between These Two Worlds.

I Mean My Point As An Artist Is I'm On My Own Little Weird Journey Across The Sky Here And Whether Or Not Anybody's Listening, Or Listening To The Degree I Would Like Them To, At The End Of The Day Has To Be An Inconsequential Thing Because I Can't Chase This Culture.

To Me, Music Was About Being Accepted And Escaping From This Crummy Existence.

I've Always Been Spiritual But I've Never Had A Proper Context, And It Took Me Awhile To Find The Proper Context. It's Hard To Realize You Can Have Any Kind Of Relationship With God You Want...and So I Now Have A Punk Rock Relationship With God.

If You're Really Going To Uncover Something As An Artist, You're Going To Come Into Access With Parts Of Your Personality And Your Psyche That Are Really Uncomfortable To Face: Your Own Ambition, Your Own Greed, Your Own Avarice, Your Own Jealousies, And Anything That Would Get In The Way Of The Purity Of Your Own Artistic Voice.

Great Music Completely Obliterates Any Conceptions Of Genre.

If Practice Makes Perfect, And No One's Perfect, Then Why Practice?

Rhetorical Question

I Was Trying To Be This Person Who Is Cool, Eternally Rocking.

I Was Brought Up Roman Catholic. I'm Not Even Baptized.

Say You Write A Song About A Chandelier, And The Chandelier Gives Off Light. And The Light Is The Color Red And Red Reminds You Of The Color Your Not Supposed To Wear Around A Bull. So You Name The Song 'cow.'

People Act Like Nirvana Invented Grunge; They Just Took It And Personified It.

To Be Able To Put Your Arms Around 24 Years Of Music, It's Really Fun.

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