I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too.
In reply to 'how do I flirt with people?': Just be yourself and not want anything out of anybody. Desire is the killer of all smoothness.
I still have access to enough money to live on in order to avoid bankruptcy for at least a few years as long as I stick to my budget Still, there's no amount of money in the world that makes one feel content with having no self respect. There's no amount of money that makes you feel better when people think of you as a joke or a hack or a failure or ugly or stupid or morally empty.
In Fall Out Boy, I noticed that I wasn't putting all that much soul into it. It was just kind of screaming, I guess. I was just dying to get out of there!
'As Long As I Know I'm Getting Paid' is a satire. Lyrically, I want to be direct. With my history in Fall Out Boy, there's some expectation that I'm going to be lyrically obtuse. But that song is a straight-faced satire of consumerism.
I wasn't necessarily frustrated in Fall Out Boy, but there were things that didn't get satisfied, desires left wanting. We didn't all meet on the same kind of music. When bands break up, there are all these buzz words that get tossed around to maintain a front for the audience, but in this case there literally were creative differences.
There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.
Any art that you are playing based on effort, loses something. I think that most of the time it should be something that happens, and you are inspired, and you just feel and follow your instincts. The best chiseled sculptures happen when the sculptor looks at the stone and says "I saw this sculpture in the stone, and I had to get it out." It's not contrived.
I think writing is a much more personal thing.
There's a certain fear of simplicity. I think that's the thing when you're younger as an artist you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you're playing, the better.
The song that's affected me the most profoundly is probably Michael Jackson's 'Thriller,' or, more specifically, the couple seconds of instrumental break before Vincent Price starts 'rapping.'
Good! Hang in there! It's normal! [Low self-esteem] Often it's a sign of intelligence (but don't let that go to your head haha)
Eh. Hipster's not really a thing anymore. Plus, hipster or out of touch old dude? Same uniform really.
For some people, home is family and their mom's house or their girl or whatever, and I have those experiences as well, but the biggest thing for me is Chicago. I don't know how to explain it.
All of the agreed-upon pariahs throughout pop-culture history put their identities into the thing we decry. And yet we derive our own identities from the act of hating. We connect on the things we are disappointed in. Some may argue that nothing in history gathers a crowd like complaining about Lady Gaga's meat dress.
I was talking to my grandpa last Thanksgiving. He pulled me aside and was like, "This Thanksgiving is the 150th for the Vaughn family in Chicago." I was like, "Cool, whatever," but I think when you have a culture like that, you should have a real appreciation for it. My family's been there forever and I don't want to leave.
I'd hate wearing suits every day.
'Punk' doesn't mean Mohawks and safety pins. It's about not conforming.
Theres no amount of money that makes you feel better when people think of you as a joke or a hack or a failure or ugly or stupid or morally empty.
You have total freedom. It's like, if you do a solo record, there are no restrictions and you can do whatever you want, good or bad. You can have these passing fancies where you go in to the studio one day and you want to do something like what you did on the way in. That's dangerous. You have to have some sort of focus.
Advice? Focus on the craft. Study the greats. Try and understand how and why they made the writing choices they did. Then, start by copying them...just as an exercise. See if you can do similar things. Learn how to write a song like so and so. Then, when you've done that, write a song like yourself. Learn to color within the lines before going outside them.
I love New Zealand. Every time I'm in New Zealand someone makes a joke about it being mostly sheep, which I think is unfair, because it's mostly nice people. It's mostly nice people and really wonderful scenery.
I lost about 60 pounds. I don't really have a moment specifically that made me do it. I remember little things, like, when I was in Japan, I remember looking around at the portion sizes of a fast food restaurant and being like, 'Well, this has something to do with it.' Americans definitely eat too much.
I love Korean food, and it's kind of like home to me. The area that I grew up in outside Chicago, Glenview, is heavily Korean. A lot of my friends growing up were Korean and when I would eat dinner at their houses, their parents wouldn't tell me the names of the dishes because I would butcher the language.
When you're No. 1 or No. 300, you still get to play and write the songs.
