I got my influences from 70s bands - Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, blah blah blah. When I was growing up, we had all these crazy bands on the Top 40. Today, if Pink Floyd released "Money", it wouldn't even get played.
I've never seen the Osbournes, I've never seen Paris Hilton. I'd rather read than watch reality TV. I'd rather live life than watch somebody else living it.
The label's going great, because we're not idiots. We're not trying to sue everyone that downloads everything. We try to give the fans a bunch of free stuff, and then have them buy the record. Without buying the record, it doesn't support your artist. These idiots like Radiohead and Sharon Osbourne that are like, "Free Ozzfest!", "Pay what you can for a record!" - Radiohead's already got their yachts and mansions. Sharon Osbourne already has her empire.
Everyone reaches their point in time where either they die or they get sick of doing drugs. It started getting debilitating. I enjoy my music a lot better than my drugs.
I love doing film soundtracks and working with directors on how they want the scene to be portrayed on audio as opposed to visual. I like the collaborative effort of working with people.
In the 70s, what thrash was there? Punk came on, and that was cool. But there was no thrash. There were dinosaur big bands, and that was great. Those were my influences.
Our label is very digital-friendly. We try to provide some free stuff to get interest in the band, but we have to pay our artists. They have to get paid.
Without intermediate artists, music is what "American Idol" decides is great or made by the very poor, because Sharon Osbourne's made everything free. No, we have to support our local artists. It's just that simple. Otherwise, we will have no art.