“What I’m trying to do is make music that people relate to, that talks about ideas that are personal but also make that connection to trying to make revolutionary change, and I don’t need to change my music to get to a certain audience.”

Becoming a father made me a lot more sentimental than I ever was before. I never cried at movies before I became a parent. I feel music more intensely.

A lot of us don’t get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.

Sometimes it takes time to get into what ideas actually mean to you. Even when you’re not writing a song, it’s like that.

What first got me involved in politics was being 14, and a youth organizer comes to my house with a van full of 14 year old girls. “Hey, you want to go to the beach with us? But first we’re going to go support the cannery workers’ strike in Watsonville.”

I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn’t want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, “Don’t be sexist!” because that’s not how I talk in regular life.

I wanted to be part of changing the world. I don’t want to just stand by and watch it be however it is.

In high school, everybody rapped. You just pounded on the table.

By examining characters lighting the way to hell, as it were, are readers spared iniquity?

I think that every band tries to mature their sound through their existence, you know?

The ideas always have to be in service of the story. And that’s what Scott and the writers did – they weren’t trying to beat you over the head with an idea; they had a story they wanted to tell, and they had ideas

I try to go throughout my daily life just as if nothing has changed, but you don’t have much anonymity anymore, which feels really good.

I have an office full of product from brands trying to be in videos and an inbox full of songs from artists, but at the end of the day if the artist doesn’t support the brand or it doesn’t make sense for the song, then it will never work.

I’m trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.

Today, … anything you can come up with that works is worth trying.

Carving out an identity for yourself is important so I’m trying to do that as well.