I grew up in basically a small farm town. If it wasn't for the Princeton Record Exchange, I might as well have grown up in the fuckin' armpit of the world. The Record Exchange saved my life. FM radio saved my life.

Although there is a really funny Pony song called 'Gimme' which was the first song I wrote on a record. It was basically about how much I hated indie rock crowds. It was based around a call to do a dance, 'Do the indie rock crowd'. The directions were 'Stand around, stand around and fold your arms'. It's worse, but not that different than the lyrics I write now. It was literally like, 'Put me on the guest list because we've been friends for a really long time' and 'We'll act like we enjoyed it/We might even sing along'. I became friends with this kid Justin Chearno who was in Pitchblende and later in Turing Machine. He was like, 'I have to admit something. I know it's not very chic to like Pony, but you guys did this song about the indie rock crowd and I saw you and I was doing it. I was standing there and you sang, "Stand around and fold your arms" like with this "Yea!" and it made me feel so terrible.' I was like, 'Yes!' All I ever wanted to do was make people really self-aware and paranoid.

I was really exhausted and couldn't be assed and I was like, 'What am I doing here? What am I doing at Brownie's?' I literally yelled that. I used to be more of an asshole. My friend Mike said to me when things started to take off, 'You can't do this anymore.' I'm standing there at the bar flinging beer at people and yelling, 'More great hits' which I used to say all the time. He was like, 'You know you're done doing that. You're not the crazy guy anymore. You're gonna be an asshole.' And I'm like, 'Fuck'. It was totally true. But any rate, I'd be yelling, 'Yeah, I've got that record too' when it sounded like something.

A long time ago, at least two thousand years, there was a rich man who had a good and beautiful wife, and they loved each other dearly, but much as they longed for children, they had none. Day and night the woman prayed, but no children came.

Outside the house there was a garden, and in the garden there was a juniper tree. One winter's day the wife stood under the tree, peeling herself an apple, and as she was peeling the apple she cut her finger and her blood fell on the snow.

She looked at the blood and it made her very sad. "Ah!" she sighed. "Ah! If only I had a child as red as blood and as white as snow." When she had said that, she was happy; she had a feeling that something would come of it.

Then she went back into the house. A month went by and the snow with it; two months, and the world was green; three months and flowers came out of the ground; four months and the trees in the forest pressed together and the green branches mingled; the woods resounded with the singing of birds and the blossoms fell from the trees. The fifth month passed, and she stood under the juniper tree. It smelled so sweet that her heart leaped for joy, and she was so happy she fell down on her knees. When the sixth month had passed, the fruit was thick and firm, and she became very still. After the seventh month she snatched at the juniper berries and ate so greedily that she grew sad and sickened. When the eighth month had passed, she called her husband and wept and said: "If I die, bury me under the juniper tree." With that, she took comfort and was quite happy until the next month had passed. Then she bore a child as white as snow and as red as blood, and when she saw the child she was so happy that she died.