“My first attempt at real music was when I was 13. My first signed band was when I was 21; that failed. I got another deal at 26; that failed, and then I was broke.”

Coming from heavy music too, it’s really hard to have heavy music not sound too butthead-ish or jock-ish, and there’s a fine line between Limp Bizkit and Nirvana – there’s a fine line there, and it’s terrifying.

My point is I’m kind of an outlier. For whatever reason, the success still blows my mind – that I’m able to talk to people about the music I’ve written.

I can tell when something’s real, or when something’s put together. I can just feel it.

I ran away for a couple of years just to prove I’d never been free.

I just find that with music I’ve always felt a sort of comfort.

You start treating your body right and your immune system is better.

I like to write pop songs and the stuff I write is fairly poppy, so I thought maybe my lot in life was to write pop songs for people. It never felt right writing songs for other people to sing, though.

When I cruise around, I can’t help but study people’s faces and emotions and wonder why they’re feeling the way they are.

Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it’s been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It’s not really ever been my route.

Trying to put music out there in the world is a pretty exciting, yet terrifying, thing and I’ve just been through the ringer.

I’ve had the same core group of friends that I’ve always had. We’re surfing, so that definitely keeps you grounded.

Never let your fear decide your fate.

There’s a bunch of songs that I call B-sides on the record that you could argue could maybe have some potential commercial success with another artist, but for me, they just felt really whack.

I have a lot of questions and I don’t have that many answers. So what better place to exercise those thoughts than the lyrics, I guess.

I find that a lot of times when family members get bronchitis or the flu or something like that, I’ll kind of skate through and be really lucky and not get that sick.

I want to surround myself with the people I care about and that has a lot to do with what love is. It’s surrounding yourself with the people you do love and trust, and that kind of thing.

I’ve asked these guys in rock bands with all the 18-wheelers driving to the venue how they make money. I just don’t understand it. But I don’t understand a lot of things.

My favorite bands are the Allman Brothers and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The baby boomers’ politics have covered a wide band of silliness, from the Weather Underground to the Timothy McVeigh types. The great majority of us are well in the middle of that spectrum, but still, there’s been both leftie silliness and right-wing silliness.

Christian music has taken a turn towards worship music, which has turned into a lot of bands and those types of sounds.

I remember a time when I would hear a band and then want to hear everything that sounded like it;

He’s a million rubber bands in his resilience.

There’s no real template to follow these days for what a band should and shouldn’t be – bands are just becoming these weird little Internet avatars that you either follow or download or interact with in some removed way.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.