In order to break the rules and do it well, you need to at least have learned them. It helps if you’ve studied them and maybe even appreciated them. When the rules are broken well, the viewer, listener, reader can always tell that it’s intentional. And that breeds respect as opposed to contempt.

If you want to be a writer, artist, musician than study the shit out of what has come before you. There might be nothing new any more but at least you’ll have a good starting point.

Spread your wings, you little shits. Be constantly thirsty. Keep learning and rebelling but always experience one before the other.

If I had shot my life between the ages of 16 - 22 as a documentary it’d be me asking people this question, “Why do we beat ourselves up so much trying to do what many just consider a leisure activity?”

I really struggled with the idea of being an artist. I didn’t know why I thought it was so important. I didn’t really comprehend why I was moved so much by music and why, in turn, I wanted to move people. So, everyone I toured with, any artist I met, I’d ask them why they thought they killed themselves to create and what it all meant. Because I really wanted to know. I needed to know.

Anyway, this is an interview I did in 2002 when I was 21. And reading it now, it kinda sorta makes me feel like I had figured it out at least a little bit.

2 - What does music, in its entirety, mean to you?

That’s a pretty serious question. Music means everything. It’s a soundtrack to everyday life. It puts grace and beauty into the most mundane of acts and situations. It is familiarity. It is personal history. It is something that puts you in a specific time and a specific place. It is raw passion. It is genius. It is a mind-fuck. It is honest. It is happiness. It is anger. It is melancholy. It is a story. It is a vehicle. It is a connection. It is sacred and it means the world to me. Music inspires people to be inspired and to inspire. It is a constant cycle of expression and understanding.

3 - What does art, in its entirety, mean to you?’

I guess you could take my previous answer and apply it here as well. I’ll add though that art is everything in which expression is performed and there is something utterly important in expressing one’s ideas, one’s sense of beauty, and one’s values. It’s someone looking at the world and filtering out the bullshit that everyone else sees and expressing this vision so that others will be able to relate and connect. And some people use different methods as their filter and as their vehicle. There’s painting, there’s film, there’s writing, there’s music etc. And I think that they are all an integral part of self-growth and self-awareness. Not only creating art but experiencing art. Art adds meaning to a life that is otherwise bland and meaningless, in my opinion.