I feel like you're not a real musician or entertainer if you can't go into a room, pick up an instrument and entertain people.

I've always liked depressing music because a lot of times, listening to it when you're down can actually make you feel less depressed. Also, even though a person may have problems with depression, sometimes you can actually be kind of comfortable in that space because you know how to operate within it.

I'm interested in where I'm going and the people I am there to see. Going to Cuba was a great example of that, and the succession of going into Cuba, which is not a very easy place to get into, and playing music for people who have never seen a live rock concert outdoors like that.

I never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away.

I'm not usually in a talkative mode.

When you're out on the road touring and touring and then making records, you're just constantly looking forward, constantly working. You don't really stop to look at where you are or where you've been.

I never look back, ever. I'm always looking ahead, working on the next thing.

Whenever anyone sends me a link to a band, saying, 'These guys sound exactly like Soundgarden,' it's always some super simple sludge riff with a singer that sings high and screechy. And it's really awful.

A lot of what attracted people to Nirvana was that they were like the people you went to high school with.

A lot of people get into alternative music as part of their identity. It's something that isn't the mainstream, that their brothers and sisters don't know about, and that their parents don't like. It's something they can have as their own.

Radio and TV can still push a band, but things need to be shaken up. There is the Internet, but mostly what I see there is little kids on YouTube playing music.

If you wanna make money in music, you're better off being on the business end of it a lot of the time. And also as a musician, if you do make money, it means you had to bite and scratch and kick the whole way to not get ripped off, because at every corner, there's somebody there waiting to trip you up and take a bigger chunk.

When I was eight, my piano teacher played seven or eight notes, and I sang them. She stopped and looked at me in shock! That was the first time I'd gotten that reaction. I'd had looks of horror, but never shock in a positive way.

It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.

You can really walk around a song and completely, if it's a good song, look at it from a lot of different angles. Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin illustrated that perfectly.

I don't listen to Beyonce or Jennifer Hudson records.

'The Beatles' did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.

I think there needs to be a global focus on people taking care of people.

Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, and Silverchair are taking the simplest elements of Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam and melding them into one homogenous thing.

There wasn't a key moment when I knew I wanted to quit.

One of the main dilemmas that's pretty common to a lot of people who are getting older is the idea that maybe there's a finish line and that maybe there's a time in your life when you start to slow down and stop and smell the roses and just kind of settle into what will be a comfortable period in your life.

Being solo really lends itself to different interpretations - and everything is in the moment and on a whim. I never realised how far out you can go when you are by yourself.

That's the miracle of music. No one can reinterpret a Picasso, but a song can be remixed and covered and interpreted in an infinite number of ways. It's a living thing.

My favorite Bob Dylan record is the very first one where he sings one Bob Dylan song and the rest of them are his interpretations of the Dust Bowl-era folk songs, or even going back as far as the mass influx of people coming into the U.S. during the gold rush. His interpretations of those songs are incredible.