I'm very lucky my parents were into different kinds of music.

I do have very small handwriting.

I've always lived in small places.

With music there's so many limbs and facets. Video and touring and merchandise and all those little things require attention. They're artist things but I tend to joke around too much with those things.

I can't imagine anyone approaching art without the joy of experimentation. The joy of it is inherent... and that is how you flow with the reality of change.

I come from a school of artists, the Mission School in San Francisco, and there are a lot of artists I look up to.

One not-to-be-mentioned major said they would sign me if I worked with a team of songwriters to help me finish songs, ha! Of course, in hindsight, I should've done it just to see what that would have been like.

I've been doing visual stuff for as long as I've been making records; in fact, for longer.

I like clothes. I really do. I like going through colors, in a way. I go, 'Greens, man. Greens. Oh, yellow. This yellow feels good.' So it shapes your psyche in a way. But I don't think about it too much, even though I'm interested in it.

Green is one of my favorite colors.

I remember when I was a kid I thought I could either be an athletic water drinker, like an Olympic-level water drinker, or I could invent Windex. Which I thought was really smart, because it already existed.

I sometimes feel like I should be in the hotel business.

The real hippie is trying to create something inclusive, something holistic, something loving and healthy which isn't in perpetual conflict with authority and actually knows that the only way to disarm the entire game is to step aside and not take any sides.

It's embarrassing to quote Gandhi or something, but being the change you want to see in the world is pretty powerful.

The first paid show was in Los Angeles at an art opening and I was paid maybe, I don't know, twenty five bucks?

I practice Rasayana Buddhism.

I love Meredith Monk, and with Instagram, I get a chance to see if she has a cat, and what's she reading.

I was born in Texas, you know. I was born in Houston.

I like it when it rains; I like it when it snows. I like seasons. I like trees. I like mountains. I like rivers. And with that around me, I write.

I've been a workaholic for many years, but at the same time, I do it because I love it.

When I was going to high school, in the high school band we would play these kind of hour-long concerts for our parents. All the parents would come to the gymnasium, and the band would play an hour-long kind of orchestra piece. 'Synchestra' is supposed to be similar, like a high school band orchestra piece.

As a vocalist, I can scream, and I've got a really good singing voice, but I can't do the really heavy vocals.

Enya was a huge deal for me. That kind of woman vocals and how wide those productions were.

The reason Strapping Young Lad was such a good band was we were honest about what we were doing.

Producing is getting the performances, tracking it, making sure all the parts are there. Mixing is when you take the finished work, and you make sure all the levels are right. It's putting all the parts together.

I think that when I got to a certain age, it was important to me to sort of analyze my relationship with myself and my past.

One thing that's really important for me to be creatively motivated is to find an angle. Some people refer to that as a concept, which it is, in a sense, but not overtly. It's just something I need to focus and hone in on, and the trajectory of what might be seen as a 'concept' gives me creative momentum.

Not only was it Def Leppard I was into when I was 15, but 'Watermark' by Enya. I loved it.

My dad's side of the family were calm folk from England, but the other side just loved to party. Somewhere between those two factions is me.

As a drummer, I'm rhythmically so disabled that it's hilarious.

I'm not a big fan of options, to be honest. The more options that I have, the less time that I spend actually completing things... ultimately, I think, if you have endless choices, I mean, the tendency to just choose endlessly is there, and that doesn't do anything for anybody, really.

While I was recording 'Ziltoid,' the movie 'Mars Attacks' came on TV, I think, six times in one week. So I don't know if there's any direct references or anything, but the aesthetics of that movie was definitely around while I was creating the music, so I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of it.

I'm good at what I do but, to be honest, not a whole hell of a lot else!

A lot of people are upset when you work out your anger issues, but there's a big industry for music which is furious and angry because, in my opinion, the world is looking for a justification to feel the same way.

I think that religion is incredibly cruel, and I think that my biggest problem with being vegetarian, usually, is other vegetarians.

People talk about the Ozzfest and what it can do for your career, and I guess I'm just oblivious to it.

The records I make, I'm there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.

The reason why everything I do is so different is not because I'm trying to be provocative; it's simply a reflection of whatever was happening to me at the time I wrote that particular record.

I have a job - it's a great job, and I love doing it - but I can't not work. That's not psychological; that's practical.

In Strapping, I had experimented with a creative catharsis under the assumption that art doesn't need to be accountable for itself, but I found out in very practical ways that you are accountable for everything you say. Everything you write, everything you do becomes not only your identity but your world resonates with it.

The way that I write is I just write a ton of music in the background of my life, and then I just bring it into rehearsal. It's, like, 'Okay, guys. It goes like this. Let's smooth it out.'

Because I have been so pigheaded and so selfish about so many things for so many years, I've spent a lot of time being, like, 'That person needs to change. This person needs to change.'

The thing is, I'm equally disgusted by both men and women.

Human beings are gross.

Strapping Young Lad is a vehicle for me to be wild and extroverted and ridiculous. It gives me the chance to say, 'Look at me. I'm a heavy metal guy. I'm Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson or whoever.'

I don't deal with conflict well, so sometimes things will happen that will make me feel sort of powerless. But instead of being able to actually deal with the problem, I just suck it up - that's the way I was raised. Music, then, becomes my one avenue for letting things go, and when I get the chance, I let it rip. It's like therapy in that way.

As someone whose music is connected to his personal growth, I feel an obligation to follow this muse wherever it leads.

If there's anybody who's new to what I do, who maybe heard 'Liberation' or some of the songs off 'Epicloud' and thought, 'This is really cool, I could get into this,' you're going to hate 'Casualties.'

I just go where it feels the most honest to go; then I deal with people thinking it's weird afterwards.

Basically, when I did 'Infinity' in 1997, I had thoughts in my head that left me with a lot of questions. I've gone to certain personal limits with 'Infinity' that, at the end of it, I think, scared me. And I've made a lot of really kinda bad mistakes as a result of that.