John Rzeznik

“Our society's sort of turning into a two-class system, where... most of the wealth and privileges are being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. And there's the rest of us... that have to go out and work and struggle and live and die and try to find some happiness and contentment and security.”

“Too many rockers put on the leather pants and shirt first. But if you write good songs, the pants and shirt will follow.”

“John Shanks is probably the biggest workaholic I've ever met in my life.”

“The good part about being a pessimist is, when something bad happens, you're never really devastated by it. And when something good happens, it's such a bonus.”

“I went to a vocational high school, which is where they basically train you to go out and dig ditches. You gotta learn a trade. Well, why do you gotta learn a trade? Because you're not smart enough to go to college. That was the underlying gist of it.”

“I think about my daughter when I'm doing stuff, and I want to see it through her eyes, and I want her to be proud of me, for what I do.”

“If you go back and listen to the album 'Name' was on, there were a lot of garage songs on it.”

“I like Valentine's Day. It's fun.”

“One of the things about live music that's so incredibly important and can't be replaced and automated is the common focus of a room full of people having that human contact and being immersed in the sensory overload of a rock concert.”

“I thought 'Gutterflower' was a really good record, but the album before that got so big that everyone expected us to go through that again.”

“The only way you fail is if you quit. That has always sort of been pounded into my head.”

“As soon as we finish a tour, I think, 'Oh my god, I'm unemployed.' I swear to God, every time I'm not touring, I hear my father yelling, 'You're unemployed if you're not working every day.'”

“As a society, when you have your mortality slapped in your face, it changes you.”

“There was always a guitar hanging around the house when I was a kid. It was a much lower impact instrument than me playing the drums, which is what I really wanted to do. My mother put a stop to the drumming.”

“When KROQ played 'Name,' that was the turning point for us.”

“If you're really gonna live, you have to be vulnerable.”

“I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write.”

“I refuse to listen to Rush Limbaugh. I listen to a lot of conservative radio when I drive around in my car. I refuse to listen to him because he's just ridiculous, just a clown. I love Rachel Maddow obviously.”

“Punk was key to the early part of me playing guitar. I was really into melodic punk-rock. I related to punk more than Lynyrd Skynyrd or Yes or Van Halen.”

“When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.”