When you come to L.A. as a kid with your mom, you're lured into doing things that you think are cool and fun and a good idea, but they're cheesy and awful. And recording a pop single was one of them.
In a way song writing can almost be detrimental, because suddenly you find an outlet that is a kind of cheating. You don't need to have direct communication. You can say, 'I can't describe it to you, but I will record it and send it to you.'
You're only famous in the eyes of others. Inside, you're still the same, and not a hundred million records or TV shows can change that. I think the only pitfall of fame is believing that it means something, and behaving like that.
But I started it when I was going through a transitional time in my life. At the end of it, it really sort of symbolized it. I had made room to change, and room to grow. I recorded it in a little room.
Usually I write the songs at home and then I bring them in to the band; when we play them as a band, that's kinda how we figure out the feel of how they're going to be presented on the record or live.
My guitar playing has not developed as much as I think it could because I never practice. I only play when I'm writing or recording or when I'm playing on tour. When I'm sitting around at home, I never play.
I'm very attached to Paris because I have a base there and am also recording there, but New York is home to me when I'm in the U.S., because it's nice to have a bed to go back to.
If I'm home and I come up with something, I'll try to record it, but a lot of the time I'll forget to. A lot of things go off into space and never come back 'cause I just don't remember them.
Today's misery is real unemployment, home foreclosures and bankruptcies. This is the Obama Misery Index and its at a record high. Its going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work - its going to take a new president.
No, my step-daughter just opened a theatre school for children, I have another daughter who works in the record industry and another who is going back to collage and I have two little ones at home.
While the Super Bowl still smashes records for butts in the seats, eSports often run longer and never blinks. There's no commercial break. There's no halftime show. From start to finish, someone is going to walk home a champion, and you don't want to...
When I am not recording, I do live shows or am at home catching up on shows which I regularly watch. But there will always be some music around me.
I'm not deluded enough to think that everyone who knows my name is a listener. You know, I hope that part of that interest - part of that public interest - has to do with me still making records that people like.
A lot of times when you're making a record, you put your head down and charge forward until you're done. You just hope that the ideas hold up, because you're kind of lost in your own storm.
I try to bring it across on my record, in my dress, in what I do and what I say because to me humor is important. You should have a dose of that and I guess giving it is what I'm here for.
The real violence is committed in the writing of history, the records of the legal system, the reporting of news, through the manipulation of social contracts, and the control of information.
It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past.
When I saw that Wrestlemania had broken an indoor attendance record, I just walked into a wrestling office, Championship Wrestling in Florida, during the offseason, and they introduced me to Hiro Matsuda, who became my mentor... and the rest is histo...
Music and philanthropy have a long, benevolent relationship with one another. Record bins are rife with charity singles, and concert history is filled with benefit shows for every imaginable cause. Musicians like to give back.
I was about 12 when I heard my first Lenny Bruce record. He was already dead. But it changed my life and really did change the world.
I'm coming up on 40 next year, and after making so many records and doing music for so long, I'm looking for a change and a different perspective. And every now and then, I think I have something I want to say.
