People are so damned afraid that one day they might wake up and discover that they've grown old.
I think it's your own choice if you turn from an angry young man to a bitter, old bastard.
I'm not going to conform to some consumer need.
I don't want to live in an ivory tower, being the songwriter who just turns inward.
A lot of punk rock is not going to be in the mainstream. It's below the radar. The beauty of it is that you're not supposed to always know. It's subterranean.
In every song I write, whether it's a love song or a political song or a song about family, the one thing that I find is feeling lost and trying to find your way.
I've been playing rock and roll since I was 16 years old, and now I have a 16-year-old.
If I look at my old lyrics, they seem to be full of rage, but empty. There was an emptiness in my life.
If journalists ask you again and again about the same bands, you'll end up saying you hate them just because you're so fed up with being asked all those stupid questions.
My brother David was a great athlete and I knew there was no way I could live up to that.
There's an honesty in our family - my kids and I are able to talk about things without me putting the fear of God into them.
A punk concert isn't fun without a pit.
There are a lot of bands who claim to be punk and they only play the music, they have no clue what it's all about. It's a lifestyle. It's not about popularity and all that crap.
If you have children, you don't want to have drugs and drinks in the house. It's just not good.
I don't want to limit myself musically. It would be really limiting if we'd neglect something we really want to do, like explore other styles of music.
What is going on in America is extreme. The youth cult, they worship youth so much it's almost paranoid. And LA is the Mecca of it all; they're taking it to the hilt.
I don't like LA. The majority just seem to be so artificial. Look at how they worship everything they think is fashionable. Isn't it sick?
The thing is, acoustic could be like a four-letter word to a lot of kids.
I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.
We put everything we had into this record, just like we do with every other record that we make.
