It’s the world that's messed up, and it’s the world’s twisted view of what beauty should be. They need to change, it’s never you.

And I say, “Every single dollar that was spent on the space program, went into the pockets of the individuals who worked on it: the contractors, the subcontractors, the vendors. It went to feed their children, put clothes on their back, send them to school.…If we are going to be the leaders of the world, and we are going to worry about trade balance, if we are going to worry about military systems, or solving the problems of the environment, we are going to have to continue to spend money on research, medical research as well.

I have to be optimistic. Otherwise I'll stop. And I think that when you're doing this kind of job, you have to keep yourself optimistic. You always have to find openings and entry points and try to see what you can work with and where you can create some opportunity to have a conversation that results in some concrete outcome.

I’m actually suspicious of people who have a lot of friends.

I wanted to relinquish fear ...

No. I think when I first started writing songs, I was approaching it more literally or narratively in the beginning, but through observing some of my close friends and some of my heroes write, I pretty quickly shifted into at least starting the process from a more subconscious space, or a more instinctual space. And I’ve really come to believe that it’s all there. It’s all already there, and if you can just kind of open the window and step out of the way, at least at the beginning of the process, with your subconscious mind, you can unearth so much raw material, and then go back and sift through that and shape it.

I wanted to relinquish fear ...