There's a lot of shiny, pretty objects out there that when you actually touch them, they just fall apart. And it's like, you need to be authentic, you need to be yourself.

I want to cultivate my own sound in my own atmosphere, where the clock is not running.

There was always a guitar hanging around the house when I was a kid. It was a much lower impact instrument than me playing the drums, which is what I really wanted to do. My mother put a stop to the drumming.

I mean my mother always wanted us to be individuals. She always instilled that into our brains which was incredibly painful for an adolescent to deal with.

I made a deadline for myself that if I wasn't earning a living being a musician by 'A Boy Named Goo,' I was going to get back to school, get a degree, and go on with my life - and enjoy the memories I had.

When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.

Too many rockers put on the leather pants and shirt first. But if you write good songs, the pants and shirt will follow.

At its best, MTV puts a face to the names, if you know what I mean. I think if you can take the expression of a song much farther, that's great. And it's one of the only outlets there is for artistic filmmaking. But it's a double-edged sword. At it's worst, MTV is just a lot of TV commercials for songs.

I just feel really lucky to have had some hits because we had a lot of time where we didn't have them. It's better to have a hit. You can ask anyone - U2, Green Day - and they'll tell you the same thing.

I wasn't present for my own life for a long time. I wasn't there; I wasn't in my relationships; I wasn't in my band; I wasn't in my soul - I was disconnected from all of it. I would let myself live in a miserable situation forever, mostly of my own making. I made my own misery and made the people around me miserable.

For me, social media is a one-way deal. It's like all the traffic goes one direction and I don't care how many people follow me, I don't care how many people like what I do, give me a thumbs up or whatever it is. I am here to share a piece of information that I've decided is relevant to our relationship as musician and audience member.

I like Valentine's Day. It's fun.

I got into alternative rock in the early 80s, bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. Bob Mould's playing was a huge influence. It was very heavy with a lot of open tunings, which was great because I played in trios, so I used open tunings to get a fuller sound.

I've met very lonely people who have 10,000 friends on Facebook. And it's just not real. We've set up this artificial society in cyberspace. And that's supposed to be a community, like a real community. It's supposed to be where people go to get solace or friendship or have fun.

The first guitar I ever owned was a Kay SG copy. That cost like $35. Man, that was a terrible guitar.

We were never hip, which is fine with me. We aren't that interested in that whole situation. But all the times how we tried and failed to get across in our music, we actually succeeded on 'Superstar Car Wash.'

The good part about being a pessimist is, when something bad happens, you're never really devastated by it. And when something good happens, it's such a bonus.

Whether you are happy or miserable is completely a choice.

The only way you fail is if you quit. That has always sort of been pounded into my head.

I love the Smithsonian. I'm a real dork for that kind of stuff.

I enjoy watching Chris Matthews a lot. He reminds me of a throwback to the older school kind of pundits like Tim Russert.

As soon as we finish a tour, I think, 'Oh my god, I'm unemployed.' I swear to God, every time I'm not touring, I hear my father yelling, 'You're unemployed if you're not working every day.'

We're doing everything we can to help bands from Buffalo.

The first record we made in three days. We literally stayed up for three days making the first album. It was crazy, crazy, crazy for us to do that. We couldn't believe anyone would give us a record deal. I look back on that record fondly but with just the slightest bit of a cringe.

I'm ashamed to say, but as a teen, there were times when I had to go to the church and get help.

Performing with a hologram in a three-dimensional world feels somewhat strange. But you know, the experience of playing live in a room full of people is most exciting, it's something that the social media has not been able to recreate. There's some kind of intensity about it, something that the social media doesn't capture.

I was a bartender, a hot-dog vendor, a cook, sold magazine subscriptions.

I just want my daughter to be respectful and nice to people. I want her to understand the importance of being humble.

You know what the most amazing luxury problem in the world is? When you've got a bunch of hits you have to play. That means the show's going to have to be a little longer.

I get nervous around famous people.

Punk was key to the early part of me playing guitar. I was really into melodic punk-rock. I related to punk more than Lynyrd Skynyrd or Yes or Van Halen.

I really love Tegan and Sara.

It's a crazy world!

Usually albums are frontloaded with singles.

A little renovation and reinvention is a positive thing.

Everybody was a democrat where we grew up. It was a blue-collar town and the democrats represented the working class and the unions. But very, very super-conservative Catholic, very proud immigrant community, very stoic.

I need a long, cold winter.

Yeah, I really like that band Deerhunter a lot.

There's always those few people that are like, 'Why don't you play any of the material off your first two records?' And I'm like, 'For the same reason that I don't play with G.I. Joe dolls anymore.' It's like, 'I'm a grown-up.' I wrote that music when I was a kid.

I have this morbid fascination with being completely alienated from everybody, and a lot of the time I really do feel that way.

I got really sick of playing just, like, 'Bop-bop-bop-bada-bop-bop-bada-rapa-pah.' Just playing that 190-beats-per-minute punk-rock songs, I didn't feel it anymore. And I always loved melody - when you looked back on those early records, there's always a hook buried in there somewhere.

The business of making music is changing so radically because of the Internet. It's become a lot more democratic in one respect, but in another respect there's no one left to guide and mentor young bands.

It's nice to see bands you could see at a bar finally get a chance.

I write about everyday people, everyday lives.

I think we'd sold a couple hundred records with our first album, maybe 1,000 at the most.

I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write.

I've taken a lot of crap. That's just the way life is. There are going to be writers who like you and writers who despise you.

I no longer feel the pressure of trying to write hits for the radio anymore.

I thought 'Gutterflower' was a really good record, but the album before that got so big that everyone expected us to go through that again.

When I'm afraid of something, I'm going at it twice as hard. I don't believe any fear can be conquered by avoiding it.