Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.
I'm not artistic nor am I all that creative.
I consider any gun that can chamber a round and send a projectile down its barrel at a high rate of speed into my body - causing me injury or death - to be an assault weapon.
To combat the confusion and depression that assault me when I come off the road in the middle of a tour, I seek the most oblivionated music possible. When it's the 'way out there' that I seek, I go right to my stash of amazing music from Japan.
I urge you to read the Occupy Manifesto, written by the New York City General Assembly. It is unavoidably clear. This is not directionless action. If it were, the media would have moved on.
I think Naomi Klein was very astute with her book 'Shock Doctrine.' We make money on disaster.
It's one thing to buy a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged.' You actually have to read it to get anything out of it.
It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.
I think the U.K. is an amazing place and has been extremely good to me. Some of my favorite and most-listened-to bands are from England. I have met many good people there and have been in front of some of the most loyal audiences I have ever encountered.
I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.
Every year, August lashes out in volcanic fury, rising with the din of morning traffic, its great metallic wings smashing against the ground, heating the air with ever-increasing intensity.
August, the summer's last messenger of misery, is a hollow actor.
Every summer, around late July and into August, I find myself in Europe, performing at any festival that will have me.
August used to be a sad month for me. As the days went on, the thought of school starting weighed heavily upon my young frame. That, coupled with the oppressive heat and humidity of my native Washington, D.C., only seemed to heighten the misery.
August brings into sharp focus and a furious boil everything I've been listening to in the late spring and summer.
There is no place in the world like Australia. Not even its beautiful neighbor New Zealand.
I wonder if it is Australia's great distance from more populated land masses that allows its inhabitants to be left to their own devices, to be incredibly creative and, at times, to be wonderfully weird.
Contemporary bands often will do tour-only releases pressed and sold only in Australia. Crikey!
I was happy to find out that when on tour, Dolly Parton doesn't use hotels but stays on her bus every night, to the point of having her buses shipped from Austria to Australia so she can tour the way she sees fit. I used one of her buses once - an honor.
I get along with Australians really well. Everyone's usually really cool, and it's always a drag to leave.
