I think I took a few stabs at writing socially conscious lyrics. I had never intended to write a song about the Gulf War, but when I wrote "Before You Hit The Floor," I didn't know what the hell was going on in the world.
I was part of punk's second generation, so, not the first wave of '70s punk, but the American hardcore scene. I had a really strong love for music prior to that, but punk created a new template.
It seemed like, in the early '80s, there was just a moment where there was suddenly no specific notion of what a rock band could be or what a song could be.
I started wanting to inject more colorful chord phrasings from the music I actually grew up on, which was Hendrix, Rolling Stones, and stuff like that.
It sounds a little cliché, but I wanted to capture some of the feelings or sounds that I heard when I listened to music that actually took me places.
A lot of the bands I loved, I didn't know where they came from or where they were going.
I generally write music first and then hum out the vocal. Sometimes I'll take a phrase that I use as a placeholder and just write around that.
Everything I'm doing musically is for its own sake. I'm recording at my house, trying really hard to write songs with a four-track tape recorder.
I'm trying to play guitar every day. I think I have a gift, and I've not been nurturing it for a long time. So I'm trying to pick it back up.
