The songs are really personal. They're really honest, even if they're sometimes unpleasant. The lyrics evoke so many emotions. Our analogies are visual and the metaphors are direct. Corin and Carrie are singing about things they care about. I feel it.

The more you play with people, the more chances you're willing to take. It's an organic thing, how the songs are born. We play something and everyone starts adding to it. It's an intuitive process.

It's an art form and all art is meant to affect the emotions of its viewers or listeners.

I liken Sleater-Kinney to a freight train. It felt like this incredible, forward-moving, powerful energy.

A band asked me to go on tour when I was 22 and asked me to play drums, and I taught myself so I could go on this trip with these people. The drums found me; I didn't find them. When I started playing, I realized how appropriate an instrument it was for me.

The advice I like to give to drummers is that there's no right or wrong way of playing the drums. I think the drumming community can be very antiquated and very stuck in the past of, like, this Neil Peart style, technical Guitar Center drum video kind of approach. That you need to have played for 15 years before you ever do anything worthwhile.