That's part of the curse: If you're gonna play the song, you better play it. I've tried to phone in 'Jeremy' a few times, and it's tough. It doesn't work.

The way we're attached to our phones these days, they buzz and twitch in our pockets, and we have to look and see if it was a text, a voicemail, or an e-mail. We're almost like lab rats. I tried to eschew the whole cell phone theory until I had kids; then, I had to be reachable at all times.

If it's a good cause, I'll play just about anything,

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky. But why can't it be mine?

You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.