I'm a great mother because of my intentions on being a great mother; I'm a good friend because I'm loyal; I'm a good daughter because I've hopefully made my mother proud; I'm a great human being because I accept that there's a spiritual being underne...
Being that I was raised in the Catholic faith, I am very careful about what I choose. I've turned down a lot of projects that... could have helped me a lot financially, and I've quit shows because of where they were going and because I feel like I ha...
I always like to have faith that an audience will suspend their disbelief, if you present it to them in the right way. I find it peculiar when people scoff at one bold idea, and yet they'll then turn over and watch a man travel through time in a poli...
Because my musical background is so diverse, it lends me to have very much my own style and it helps me to relate to the music as I'm going to play it. I just write. And if it comes out country, it's a country song. The funny thing is, I write all ac...
I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I'm from. I wouldn't move back there, but it's funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a bi...
I didn't understand key signatures or anything, you know. I'd say silly things at the top of a trumpet part like, 'Note, when you play B naturals, make the B naturals a half step lower because they sound funny if they're B naturals.' And some guy sai...
I use a lot of different words for God - infinite intelligence, primordial, perfection or universal creativity. All of these, to me, are God. And 'God' is a word, I think, that some people feel uncomfortable with, so they can use another word, you kn...
For me, it's sad to say, but I would probably have a spiritual marriage but not a legal marriage, because I think so much about marriage starts to become about finances. It has nothing to do with God or feelings or the romantic side of marriage. It's...
I realize we're not promised tomorrow. Believe me, I realize that. But if God blesses me and lets me stay, I love my life so much, it is such a good life. I am eager to throw myself at His feet, but I don't want to get on the first busload that is go...
I was on some TV shows with Lady Gaga the other week, and you could see the difference in reaction between her fans and my fans outside. She comes out, and she looks like a star, and the reaction is just tears, crying, people going, 'Oh my God, Oh my...
To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge p...
Everybody needs to show respect to each others' ways and the cultural life that you get on this planet. Don't get caught up on 'I'm brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.' You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492? All these names we're usin...
'Gorilla Man' is a composite of a few individuals, but the song itself was actually inspired by James Taylor. I spied his 'Gorilla' album laying on my floor and in some altered state, instantly started singing the chorus. It was fun to write. There's...
I met the guys through a friend of a friend, and their former drummer had quit. I wasn't too familiar with the Chili Peppers before that, so I joined at the end of 88' and we finished recording Mother's Milk at the end of 89', next thing I know I'm i...
I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than...
I'm a very competitive person, and I always competed with myself. Every year, I'd take six weeks with my band, crew and choreographer to put a new show together. We'd spend eight hours per day, seven days per week putting a show together to beat the ...
I'm a firm believer in stories with arcs and beginnings and endings and all that. 'Scott Pilgrim' is sort of one long novel, and it's so long that I get confused and sort of tread water sometimes. But there's definitely a goal to it. People who just ...
I just have this thing in my head that I want to do serious stories that are still just way too cute and drawn in a really cute, appealing, rounded, childish way, and it's like, I don't know if it makes sense - but it's just something I'm really stro...
There's got to be a backbone, there's got to be a skeleton to the whole way I perform, but you never want to hit the same note twice during a performance, I think. I think it's always got to be fresh so it doesn't bore me, and I always want to go out...
I knew there was a way to blend records together, but I didn't know how to. This was haunting me when I was in my teens. In my frustration, I decided to start experimenting with electronics. I tested the torque factor on different turntables. I had t...
I think about everything first. I think about the scenario: the story and the characters, what I'm trying to say and I'll think about that for a couple of days until it's all locked in and then when I get to an instrument it'll just fall out. But the...
