You take care of it and deprive them of the chance to show their friends.” You don’t say ‘Woe is me, the house has been destroyed’. So we would always clean it up and I think that was influential to me: you don’t take it lying down. They’d do it in the night, and we’d wake up with toilet paper thrown all over the house or ‘punk’ or ‘goth’ written on the side of the house in ketchup that was supposed to be blood. My dad always said ‘Let’s not give them the satisfaction of getting to see this’. I defend myself when I feel I’m being threatened or challenged and when I put all of myself into something – like my music or performance – then of course I’m going to be the first person to defend it, because who else will? If you won’t stand up for yourself, who else will? “I always remember what my dad would do when kids vandalised our house – he would make sure we cleaned it up immediately. I grew up having to tell people ‘This is who I am and this is why I am this way’. Some people don’t understand what it’s like to grow up in a small town and be the social pariah, to be the person whose home was vandalised on a daily basis because of the way he looks or the bands he listens to.
**ON GROWING UP **“I grew up defending myself, that’s in my nature. I wouldn’t want to be someone who is lukewarm, I don’t want anyone to be alright with me.” And it gives me fuel to carry on making music for my audience and so I wouldn’t trade it in. It’s silly and stupid but I assume it will carry on forever. Why is it necessary for other people to express their disdain for that? It’s not needed – but it comes with the territory. I am doing something I really enjoy, that is really important to me, and which people obviously enjoy because I have an audience. How is it anyone else’s job to explain to me how much they hate that every time I go somewhere? Of course that gets frustrating. “I made a record that other people enjoyed, and people put it out.
But still those critics say ‘Fuck you for doing that’.
But then imagine the next day that you walk into the class and someone else yells ‘Hey, your fucking pot sucks – how dare you put that in the window?’ You’d explain – ‘No, other people put that there’. Say I was doing a pottery class, and I made a pot that five other people in the class like so much they put it in the front window so other people can see it. Wouldn’t you be sick of people criticising you for doing the thing you love the most, and which doesn’t hurt anybody? Wouldn’t you be sick of people booing you when you walk into a room? Wouldn’t that get a little annoying? Whenever I read about what an asshole I am, I feel I have to explain this. ON CRITICISM “I do get sick of being criticised.
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