Musician

I can't allow myself to censor myself.

I grew up singing in a church choir.

I just feel like this guy who's visiting the music business over the weekend. Every time I write a song, I feel like it's never going to happen again.

I still deal with triggers and neuroses that I've developed over the decades. But I do think I have a great amount of compassion for people who feel that they don't fit in, or people who feel they have trouble finding their place in this world.

My music is definitely very personal. The songs are about moments, snapshots of everyday life, and about having one's say, or at least feeling like one has had one's say.

Being in school, whenever I laughed or smiled, I would turn to find someone staring at me with this terrible hatred and disgust. I had to control everything - control my voice, control my facial expressions, control my hair and my clothes, and where I walked and where I sat - at every moment. I think that drove me to terrible anxiety.

The snappier lyrics come when I'm feeling really good and up. A lot of times, they come after I've just had a meeting with somebody that was uplifting, and you get home, and you're feeling playful or upbeat or whatever, and then they just seem to pop right out.

I think the thing that I find the most difficult to talk about is religion.

You can only be you, and there are plenty of people out there who wouldn't have you be any other way.

I realized that a lot of the things I had been telling myself about not being good enough just weren't true, and 'Queen of Denmark' gave me the chance to prove to myself that I could do something real.

I can only live in the world of truth, inasmuch as I'm able to be truthful with myself at any given point, on any given day.

There's a lot of anger in 'Queen of Denmark,' and that's me getting political.

It's not like we wanted to talk about the fact that we're gay all the time, but the world has forced it to be an issue.

Most of the bad things that have happened to me happened in Denver.

I'm not saying that I don't have skills. I'm saying I don't feel like I can use my skills to achieve self-esteem. I feel like it's cheating. I think that I should have self-esteem simply because I am a human being who deserves love and deserves everything just as much or just as little as everyone else.

I love a lot of different styles, but my heart belongs in electronic music.

If 'Queen Of Denmark' was about my childhood, then 'Pale Green Ghosts' is definitely about my adolescence, and that period was completely dominated by electronic music.

I think the humor, when applied in the right amount, only serves to intensify the other emotions in a given song; it highlights them, makes them stand out.

I had never considered myself a political guy, but there are certain things I can't shut up about. When I hear people say things like, 'If 'we' allow gays to marry, then people will want to marry animals and children,' I can't just stand there.

I could have easily said that I don't believe in anything when I came out of the upbringing that I had, but I do still believe that there is something there, and I have a difficult time figuring it out. I suppose I don't want to be thought of as stupid or unintelligent because I believe that there's something out there bigger than us in the world.