“I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.”
“I do definitely believe that there is life away from this planet. I mean, we've kind of established that with the fact that we found bacteria on meteorites, and we've kind of used that to backtrack and show how this Earth, this planet, could have formed the ability to sustain life in the first place.”
“I have that love for music, when you are finding either old gems that you never heard or newer stuff that perks your ear. It keeps you trying to look for new stuff to write about it. You don't spin your wheels. I take that same approach to music and books.”
“I was a Marvel kid, and I would have to say that Spiderman is my all-time favorite character. As I got older, my tastes developed a little bit more, and I would follow certain writers; like, I really got into Grant Morrison. From the time I was 5, I was into comic books. From the time I learned how to read, it was all about comic books.”
“I've still got the same friends that I grew up with, I still go to the same places that I used to go to when I was younger, and it's just a very special place to me. I'm still very proud to call Iowa home.”
“People can talk about punk all they want, but after new wave put that down, metal is the voice of the disenfranchised and that need to become unhinged. That's why it appeals to so many people when they are younger and carries over when those people, at 40, don't want to grow up.”
“The fact that the public are mesmerised by Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and all these miserable people makes me laugh because those celebrities are more miserable than the people reading about them for escapism.”
“There's a certain darkness to Slipknot, but at the same time, there's a very strong dose of positivity. Stone Sour is the same way. There's a certain melancholy that comes with the slower stuff, but at the end of the day there's also that other side that is very positive. It's all how you deliver.”
“With 'Seven Deadly Sins,' there was a lot of personal stuff in there that I didn't even realize I'd been carrying around for awhile. And a lot of guilt involved, a lot of emotion, a lot of depression. Once I was done writing that book, I was able to really let go of that stuff.”
“I am the kind of guy who has never taken myself too seriously. I mean, I am very serious about what I do; I'm very serious about the creative process and everything, but at the end of the day, I am just another lucky geek who got to live out a dream, you know?”