I learned in the last few years that it`s really unhappy and really unsustainable to try and base your well being on something as arbitrary as record sale and critical acclaim and the interests of the public. All of those things are so fickle. So my approach now to music is I want to make records that I love, and I hope that other people love them, then that`s OK.

I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.

It just seem like musicians want to sell a few records and put out a perfume line, and I think it`s so sad that there are so many musicians who don`t want to change the world... Music has been so much more.

" Basically we should stop doing those things that are destructive to the environment, other creatures, and ourselves and figure out new ways of existing."

"If you look at the course of western history you`ll see that we`re slowly granting basic rights to everyone. A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were extended to property-owning white men. Then all men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally retarded. Now we`re agonizing over the extension of basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this --the ability to pursue life without having someone else`s will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". By what criteria can you justify denying basic rights to any living thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected to your species, sexual preferences, color, religion, ideology etc. Would you eat your housecat, or force a mentally retarded child to ingest oven cleaner? If not, then why is it ok to eat cows and test products on sentient animals? I believe that to knowingly commit actions that cause or condone suffering is reprehensible in the extreme.I call upon you to be compassionate and treat others as you want to be treated. If you don`t want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn`t condone such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not."

"Basically we should stop doing those things that are destructive to the environment, other creatures, and ourselves and figure out new ways of existing."

"There are viable (and usually better) alternatives to the use of animals for food, sport, clothing, & experimentation. I beg you to discontinue any actions that might cause or condone animal torture, abuse, or destruction."

"Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it`s pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It`s easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe and moo and walk around."