No one deserves anything more than anybody else. Because of that fact, you treat everyone the exact same way as best as you can. Same with musical ideas. My ideas aren't better than anybody else's.
A collaboration, you have to collaborate, meet in the middle, yield to the other collaborator, and that's a wonderful thing.
I grew up in a super suburban place where the mundane middle-class issues were similar to what Ray Davies was singing about. All the topics he was singing about were middle-class woes and humanitarian woes - human-being woes.
I really like proto-metal, so stuff like Pentagram is really great, and that's more in the vein of Sabbath and stuff like that.
I'm jamming 'Black Sabbath Vol. 4' all the time. Zappa's 'Cruising With Ruben & The Jets.' A lot of Gong lately. Some Hawkwind. The Residents' 'Duck Stab' is amazing. Some Fugs. Lots of stuff, man. I'm pretty schizophrenic with records.
My dad is a lawyer and my mom is an artist. So growing up was exactly what it sounds like - strict household but a lot of creativity. They are so psyched that I get to make music for a living. My parents rule.
I really like to think of each record as its own thing. So, for sure, but I hate the idea of being stuck in anything. Like I want to do a Hawkwind-style record too, or a noise rock record or a hardcore record. Why not, you know? I would just not want to keep heading too far in one direction, without pulling off and going the other way.
I'm just a total nerd, in all honesty. I'm a massive, insane record fan - that's how I got into playing music. That's why I wanted to make an album - I'm obsessed with how sides flow.
The 'Manipulator' record was really fun to do. It was far less heavy and draining, in an emotional way. It was just like making a rock record. It was just really fun.
I know 150 percent how deeply cynical and negative I can be. I can be very dark and harsh.
Each album I do, I try to have at least a slight rule, whether it's the band has to get together and record live, or all guitars, all fuzz on, all the time. It's varying and slight, but yes, I like having rules.
There's the conforming 9-to-5-lifestyle thing. Then there's, like, settling down, trying to find a balance in a relationship sense, or having a dog and having a house. All these things, like, they're not really gonna make you happy.
The idea of 'Freedom's Goblin,' to me, leads to a wild conversation. I would hope that father and son, driving home from the record store, could have a conversation about what that title means. Because to me, it's the duality of being free: the evil and the good, and how it's a constant paradox.
My favorite records are, like, The Pretty Things' 'Parachute' and 'S.F. Sorrow' and The Mothers of Invention's 'We're Only in It for the Money' and The Kinks' 'Village Green Preservation Society' - these records that have a story - even if it's not a literal story - because of how they're sequenced and flow. It's like a novel with sound.
But I think it's hard for me to only put out one record a year. Because I get too antsy. But it's good I'm learning to do that, because each record counts. And you should make it count.
I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.
I listened to oldies radio stations as a kid; lots of Kinks and Beatles and '50s hits.
A CCR Headcleaner show will blow your mind.
A good record transports you to another place.
Any reality-TV show on MTV is gonna be fake and stupid.
