“I always work on the songs all together up until the very end. I never mix a song and think, “Okay, now that one’s done.””

They’re all a huge influence on me. For me, just following rock history and watching Darkness On the Edge of Town and realizing that’s it’s okay to be obsessed with a snare sound because Bruce Springsteen was obsessed with a snare sound.

With a song, you can shove it in a dark closet and tell it you’ll be there when you’re ready.

The more you tour, the better the band gets, and you get caught up in a lot more things than just traveling. It becomes a way to survive.

When you start getting into a full-band, democratic context the little things almost immediately get thrown out the window because you don’t think they’re important.

Touring is a rough thing. You don’t have any time to look around or stop and think if what you’re doing is making you happy.

It’s rare in life to look at all the people around you and realize that they’re all invested in what you’re doing.

Neil Young, who isn’t really evident when you listen to my music, is probably my favorite of the legends, besides Dylan.

I know when the time has come to throw it in the trash can. With a child you’ve got to go to therapy and put it in daycare and buy it birthday presents.

I think that’s why it feels like songs are really connected, and I like that. They’re all worked on kind of like a little family.

You’re not so focused on the minutiae. You’re focused on the overall feel, and that’s the stuff that I get from the demos.

First impressions are always the most important.

When you’re in the moment and not over thinking the song is when things tend to really work.

I love when people will say, “Oh, my songs are my children.” I understand that, but I’m also not afraid to kill my kids.

I usually know the general emotion of a song, or the general feeling of it, and then I think I just get so excited by the act of recording. I love that process so much that I feel like if

The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store.

I can’t see how an unarmed man rejecting a drug deal ended up dead.

Maybe magic ends with me and it will never cross your path, but I want you to remember that survival is an art. The world is falsehood so you rely on your smarts.

Our stories don’t begin and end because men we once trusted have left them.

Remember, there are beginnings in endings, through destruction there comes life.

The thing that interests me far more than anything is creating music, songwriting and arranging, and in that context drumming itself is a means to an end.

There is no quick fix. At the end of the day, you still have to do the work to maintain your weight. It can’t be a diet. You have to change your life.

So what if I never win my fifth gold medal; It’s only one end of the string.