If you stick around long enough, you're going to become fashionable eventually.
Joy comes from places you least expect it. It's usually the simple things, like watching my son play basketball or going through Central Park when the blossoms are blooming.
I definitely have a dark side of me that can be pretty vicious... as we all do.
When I'm with the wife, and we're having a romantic night, I occasionally think about a glass of red wine, but I'll order a sparkling water. I'd like the wine, but it wouldn't end with one glass, so I don't even go there.
Growing up in a band is weird - you get stuck hanging on to what it is you think you are. But what I took into Depeche was that punk ethic, that you don't have to be accomplished to be a musician. If you've got ideas, you can do this.
I have a very addictive personality, so I'm even careful about wanting more of anything than I need - even chocolate.
Making a record with 'Depeche Mode' is not a simple process. It's quite complicated and long. We have the luxury of time. I'm not sure that's such a good thing when you're being creative.
You're only going to get surface with me. It takes me ages to warm up to people.
It takes a long time to find your own voice. Along the way, you imitate all the things that influence you - in my case Johnny Cash, Bowie, John Lydon.
I still hold on to the idea that a record can really change the way I feel.
Certain songs like 'Enjoy the Silence' - to me, it always fits anywhere. There's something about that song that's really timeless, and I never get bored or feel like I have to muster something up.
To me, it's always been a challenge to look for the light: to look for those spaces in your heart where there is hope and faith and try to embrace that rather than crush it. I've spent so many years trying to crush those feelings of hope, and I certainly succeeded for quite a while.
The possibilities are endless now, with performing, getting your music online, getting your own website and getting your music out there. I think that's very cool and amazing.
I really believe that the more distractions and fixes I remove from my life, the better I'll feel about myself. The biggest of those is Depeche Mode. It's the one marriage that survived, but I'm not sure it works - for me, anyway. Jumping on a plane to go somewhere else and be told how wonderful I am doesn't feel good any more.
There's that side of me that wants to be the loving, caring father, and there's the other side of me that's just a dirty animal. If I don't let that out, I go nuts.
L.A. is always great. There's something special about L.A. And New York, for me, because it's home. There's nothing quite like walking onstage at Madison Square Garden.
You've got to put interesting people around you; you've got to work with people who are gonna inspire you to take the songs you've written into a completely different direction, because there's nothing more boring than going to the studio and predictably knowing what is going to happen.
I often find myself on my knees praying to something or someone to not be in control.
I had a few brushes with death, where I nearly chose to go. The final one in 1996 did it for me. I suddenly had that feeling that I wasn't indestructible. There was no big white light experience, I just felt this complete blackness and a huge voice inside me saying, 'This is not right.'
I always played around with writing songs, but when you're spending a lot of time in bars, you have a lot of big ideas, but you don't do much with them.
