An unlocked door means that, occasionally, you might get a devil come in, but a locked door means you have thousands of angels just walk by.
If You Want To Rebel Against Society, Don’t Dull The Blade
Skateboarding is not a hobby. And it is not a sport. Skateboarding is a way of learning how to redefine the world around you. For most people, when they saw a swimming pool, they thought, ‘Let’s take a swim.’ But I thought, ‘Let’s ride it.’ When they saw the curb or a street, they would think about driving on it. I would think about the texture. I slowly developed the ability to look at the world through totally different means.
I never imagine myself as anything. I’ve never had a goal or any future vision at all. I just do what’s in front of me.
People ask me: ‘What is punk? How do you define punk?’ Here’s how I define punk: It’s a free space. It could be called jazz. It could be called hip-hop. It could be called blues, or rock, or beat. It could be called techno. It’s just a new idea. For me, it was punk rock. That was my entrance to this idea of the new ideas being able to be presented in an environment that wasn’t being dictated by a profit motive.
The first time I ever recorded, which was into my boom-box, I was like, ‘Wow, check that out.’ It sounded great. The narcotic of it was so intense – it was pleasurable. I was like, ‘You sound like a band.’ Then I ended up spending the rest of my life trying to chase that initial high again.
To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.
Yeah, if someone’s selling downloads and collecting money for our songs I would be unhappy about that but if they’re trading it I don’t mind, obviously if I make a thousand records or CDs or whatever, I like to sell a thousand.
I’m all for file sharing. That’s great – as long as people are prepared for the significant consequences. One is that music will become completely couched in advertising. That’s already happened. And another is that people should be prepared to have fun with the past because the only music that can possibly be free is the music that’s from the past. It costs money to make music. And if people are prepared to only have the past to listen to, then let it be free.
I think that people are constantly thinking about capturing things that they’re not actually present for the moment they’re trying to capture. I’m quite sure of this. I think it’s insane how many pictures have to be taken these days. We have to realize there’s a level of documentation that’s just chatter, it’s noise, and beyond that, people who are truly documenting are going to have to find a way to puncture that.
I’m really anti-option, so computers have been my nightmare with recording. I don’t want endless tracks; I want less tracks. I want decisions to be made.
I never, ever had it in my mind that I wanted to be in the record industry, because I still contend that the record industry is an insidious affair. It’s this terrible collision between art and commerce, and it will always be that way.
The only thing that drives music is the people who are making it.
That’s a Roman concept where the government can do anything, as long as you give the people “bread and circuses.” And I’d say this culture right now is similar, as long as people have money, fun, and food, our government can do heinous, heinous things.
Every song I ever wrote, I wrote to be heard. So, if I was given a choice that 50 years from now I could either have a dollar or knowing that some kid was listening to my song, I’d go with the kid listening to my song.
I appreciate the past, but I want to make new things. That’s the problem with the sack on the back – if you carry it around with you, it’s like you get hobbled.
I think that the idea of straight edge, the song that I wrote, and the way people have related it it, there’s some people who have abused it, they’ve allowed their fundamentalism to interfere with the real message, which in my mind, was that people should be allowed to live their lives the way they want to.
We play loud electric guitar music, and we’d hope that that doesn’t mean you have to act like an asshole.
I don’t think it’s an ethical or moral issue, or even that people are stupid, but I do feel like as a culture things are out of balance, perverted, and inverted. Things that are ridiculous are worshipped, and things that are important are ridiculed. I think that’s something worth thinking about.
American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it’s profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It’s just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you’re making good food and people are happy.
Part of the way the work world works is not so much creating a separation between your work and your free time, but creating the illusion of a separation between your work and your free time. Every day is the weekend for me, which means I’m always busy.
I do not consider myself a teddybear. Just to be clear, I don’t feel sorry for myself.
Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it’s always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don’t ever come within a mile of profit – clearly these people are not playing music to make money.
It’s so interesting that humanity has to be defined by emotional strife or something. I don’t buy into that.
There are certainly good examples of incredibly brilliant, beautiful music that has been made commercially available and sold everywhere. But I would say that, for the most part, quantity certainly does not speak well for quality.
