“3 years ago I was stocking shelves at Target, living on Ramen noodles, and crashing at Billy’s house. Now I’m on tour”

We want to give kids something to hope for. If one kid says, “Your cd helped get me through this year,” that’s all it takes.

In music industry they always want you to write something like the one that was popular. And that’s something you kind of have to just – sometimes you just say yes to people, like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure,” and then you just write the one you want to write.

I need a little criticism while I make a record so that I kind of feel like: okay, I know that I’m doing the best that I can do because someone is actually here challenging it.

Things have changed. I almost feel like it’s more adaptable, and you can decide your own career now. I feel artists have so much more of a voice and so much more power now. It’s really inspiring to see how a lot of the young artists use their platforms.

Start enjoying the things you like about yourself, and if there are things you want to change, either get to work on it or get over it.

A lot of bands don’t really like each other. I read an Interpol interview the other day, it was a really good interview because it was showing a different aspect of a band.

I got a little tattoo on my face, I’ll never be able to work another real job so I consider that to be kinda forcing myself to stick to music.

The whole time you’re bouncing ideas off each other, you continue to try and push the songs as far as you can take them and make them the best that they can be.

I hope my allergies don’t act up

All the best songs are, I think, the easiest write because they just come out.

There are some people i’d take a bullet for, and some people i’d like to put a bullet in.

I didn’t even write the lyrics down. I got in the booth, I put down a little guitar riff and the idea I had was it was going to be really simple, I just want it to be all about the lyrics and I just literally sang the lyrics.

It is not really about them though it targets them as consumers.

As a society in turmoil, we are going to see more, and more various, attempts to simulate order through repression; and art is a historical target for such efforts.

Young people know they are being betrayed by he mass electronic media. It caricatures them, caricatures others.

It’s tempting to want to blame it all on an easily identifiable target: Muslims, immigrants, refugees, blacks, Jews.

Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong. So instead of speaking to highly agreeable audiences, target suggestions to people with a history of originality.

If your real wages are declining, your job is at risk, you fear your children will be worse off than you are

I don’t think there’s any question journalists have become targets, but then I think that – that anyone who tries to practice liberty becomes a target of fanatics.

Earth’s dispossessed are vulnerable targets for extremists: those who teach that global justice is meaningless; that satisfaction can come only in violence, division, and intellectual isolation.