I have always been fascinated by dark and mysterious stuff. I guess I have a pretty dark and gloomy side. Writing songs saves me from going completely gonzo.
I don't like the new trends in horror. All this torture stuff seems really mean-spirited. People have forgotten how to laugh, and I don't see anybody who's using it as allegory.
I'm not a writer who looks for the fantastic and the sensational. I like the world we've got. If there is anything special and magical, I have to find it in the ordinary stuff.
Basically, Pizza Hut just backed out on the ad agency at the last minute. They got fired and we got fired. It was a simple as that. We do stuff like that on and off.
When I first decided I wanted to make beats and write songs and stuff like that, it wasn't like I sat down and the first thing I wrote was even halfway legit. It took a while to find my way through it.
Sometimes you try a song and people don't respond, or you tell a story and you just hear crickets. But when you play thousands of shows, you start to refine stuff.
You've got your Justins who have all the back flipping dancers and stuff, and then you've got Lemar, and he totally moves you without having to do all of that, and he's gorgeous.
When you're making a film, it's a very technical process. You do things over and over again, and you have to hit your marks and your light and all that stuff.
I worry a lot about people using games just for marketing, to get people to buy more stuff, which I think would be the worst possible use.
It takes a lot of energy and creativity to make such screwed up lives carry on. And the kind of will people have to survive, year after year, dealing with that stuff, is weirdly impressive.
I realized if I'm not really making an album, I don't have to be concerned about things like stylistic consistency, pacing, a coherent mood. All that stuff goes out the window.
The subject for a lot of non-fiction is very emotional, but if you read it, it's the most boring, dry stuff. I wanted 'Torn Apart' to be extremely accessible and readable.
My goal was, and still is, to write first, direct my own stuff whenever possible and control my own creative destiny.
Everyone can get a little sloppy with cash and it's smart to notice. But what's squeezing you is the big stuff you ladle onto your credit cards.
They just think I'm a white dude. Every once in a while someone thinks I'm Jewish. I get a lot of stuff, but never Latino.
There's so much nonsense tossed around about L.A. and how horrible it is and 'don't go out there' and all that stuff. So I went out to L.A. and I was pleasantly surprised.
'Lizzie McGuire' was my big thing when I was younger. I did buy some pencils and back-to-school stuff of hers because she was on it. I loved her.
I've been stuck on John Eldredge lately. He's all about being a warrior outside of the church. I hate to think about this kind of stuff - I just like to do it.
I've listened to a lot of outside stuff and just haven't really heard anything that moves me. I don't know if I'm getting old and crotchety or what.
Are you familiar with 9/11? Building 7? You know what was in there? All the Enron stuff. I guess that building went down on its own.
I don't particularly like being angry about stuff. I'd rather hang out with my daughter and write my little books.
