I was never encouraged to believe anything. I was brought up in a profoundly agnostic or pantheistic community.
I guess the most emotional part is when I have that moment when I end up writing something that I really, really love. So not only is there the emotional connection with the music that's being created, but there's also the magic of the fact that you're essentially creating something from nothing.
There is a dysfunctional strangeness to Los Angeles that doesn't exist in any other western city. The roads are crumbling, no-one knows what they're doing, the city government barely works.
The reason I didn't like cocaine is it made me do stupid things, have stupid conversations, and stay awake until 11 o'clock in the morning unable to think, read, sleep or speak.
There are so many causes. Gun control, climate change, deforestation, animal welfare, human welfare, education. Working on the big issues is noble and great, but being aware of what’s going on around you right at this moment, being kind to the people around you, extending compassion and decency, not just to everyone you meet but also to yourself—I think that’s one of the biggest challenges most people face.
Since I was really little, I've just always had an obsession with, not just science fiction, but science and space. And also because as time passes and the more advanced science becomes, the more interesting it becomes.
Over time, I started becoming more and more aware of the vastness and complexity of the universe, which led me away from any sort of conventional Christianity.
Up until I started working with him, I had thought that music was a nice thing that I enjoyed and liked making, but it wasn’t a serious healing modality. What Dr. Sacks has proven is that music is actually a quantifiable, profound healing modality.
I've made records that everyone has hated and I've loved, and made records that everyone has loved and I've deemed, at best, mediocre.
In the course of my life, I've made some happy songs but it's the more sort of like pathos-laden, emotional, melancholic music that either I make or that other people make that really resonates with me.
For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion.Then you go to an anti-immigration website chat room and ask, "What's all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?"
The good thing about not being drop-dead gorgeous is that as time passes, I don't have much to worry about. I have friends who are actors and every day they look in the mirror with trepidation.
I wish I could sing. I don't technically have a terrible voice, but it's certainly not as good as most of my friends. Whenever I hear myself on a record, it just reminds me I'm not a very good singer.
When I was nine years old, I started playing guitar, and I took classical guitar lessons and studied music theory. And played jazz for a while. And then when I was around fourteen years old, I discovered punk rock. And so I then tried to unlearn everything I had learned in classical music and jazz so I could play in punk rock bands.
People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously.
The truth is that genetics has robbed me of hair. But it's not interesting to blame genetics.
When I was growing up, albums were my closest friends, as sad as that may sound - Joy Division's 'Closer,' or Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Heaven Up Here'... I had a more intimate relationship with those records than I did with most of the people in my life.
I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.
Because we find somethings distasteful is not justification enough for us to deem them criminal.
When I went to university, I was a philosophy major, but because I'm not very bright I chose to study philosophy at a performing arts school, maybe because the philosophy program there wasn't too rigorous or challenging.
You know, if you love something, you should love it regardless of whether it costs five dollars or 500 or 5,000 dollars. Unfortunately, that's not the way our culture works, and we do collectively buy into this idea that things that are more expensive probably have more value.
When 'Play' first came out, journalists didn't review it; it didn't get radio play. And then it became this big successful record and, I hate to admit this, I found myself liking the fame. I bought into it.
I can't think of any musician or producer who has influenced me more than Brian Eno. From when he was in Roxy Music, producing Devo, the Talking Heads and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
I've had insomnia since I was a little kid and I never sleep well. Sometimes I sleep very badly and sometimes I sleep slightly badly. I get it especially when I'm on tour because you cross a lot of time zones, and I'm not very adaptable.
I'm perfectly happy for my videos to be on YouTube, whether I'm getting paid for them or not. If they're on YouTube, people will see them. If for some reason my videos get taken down from YouTube, well, I apologize. If it was up to me they'd all be up there and they'd all be free.
