I was one of those kids who thought I could be the president of England when I grew up if I wanted to. Then I started acting and realized life is hard, and people are mean. And there's no president of England, and I'm not British.
There's a lot of rudeness and sullen behavior and kids that are very entitled and spoiled, just buy me more stuff. I didn't want to raise kids like that.
When I was in high school, I wasn't really popular. I was picked on a lot. And then I did a talent show, and kids started to tell me that I did a good job. It was the first time that my peers told me that they liked what I was doing. Something clicked, and I knew that this is what I wanted to do.
The Cool Kids are Chicago. Me being from Michigan is a part of that dynamic.
I always hated high-school shows and high-school movies, because they were always about the cool kids. It was always about dating and sex, and all the popular kids, and the good-looking kids. And the nerds were super-nerdy cartoons, with tape on their glasses. I never saw 'my people' portrayed accurately.
I pretty much always knew I wanted to be a writer. I was writing goofy stories when I was 7 or 8. That was what I call 'wishful-thinking writing.' I grew up in the city and always wanted a horse, but there was no way I was getting a horse. So I wrote all these stories about kids who had horses. It's still fun entering these other worlds.
I always take care to have interesting chord progressions, because you can have the best sound design in the club, and you'll kill it in the club, but in five years, kids will have better sound design. But if your music is good, you'll always be able to listen to it, even in 20 or 50 years.
We were so poor as kids. I didn't even see a bathtub, running water, hot water, commode - we didn't have any of that. We started with a humble log house, milk cow, garden-raised our own food, killed a hog every year in the fall, and had the meat hanging up in the smokehouse - that was our childhood, me and ol' Si.
I'm used to being around kids. Even when I was growing up in London, I had an older sister, I had a younger sister that I used to look after from time to time.
Being a parent is weird. It changes people in subtle and unsubtle ways. In my case, it awoke a kind of manic sentinel in my brain. Anything in the house that might be a threat to the kids or to my wife gets terminated - food, sharp edges, poor wiring.
I mean, I'm an uncle of seven or eight, and I don't mind it at all! Kids are great. Kids are the best six-hour experience you can have!
I have my own worries and concerns and frustrations, but I'm doing something I love to do. My wife and kids are in good shape. What is there not to be happy about?
I've always been interested in apologetics, the topic of different world views and, 'Why are we here?' and 'Where are we going?' I grew up in the church, and sometimes kids who grew up in a church can be sheltered and can't engage with people with different world views.
The fact that my grown kids like to hang out with me, I mean, it just - I don't think it really can get any better than that, I don't think.
Songs are just like your kids. You love them all, and they're all different. I can't really pick out favourites.
I most definitely want kids, but I'll probably adopt kids.
Kids love food. It's about putting materials out there that get kids thinking about food - to get kids interacting about food. It's about simple things, like kids thinking about pasta - getting kids to work with food.
I'm probably a natural uncle. I can take the kids out and have fun with them and look after them, and I can be Mr. Popular. But actually having to do the grind? That stuff just doesn't appeal at all.
I'm a very private person. I don't go out much. I'm home with kids. I go to work. I don't really like being the focus of attention, which is why I like being behind the camera more.
When I was a kid, my parents never let me use race as an excuse. They'd say, 'When you walk into a room and it's all white, those kids have to work to stand out, not you.'
Once kids begin to realize that they are connected to a greater good and greater whole, then that will lessen the possibility that they will act out violently because it creates empathy.
The rivalry between the Montague and the Capulet kids seems very modern to me. Juliet is a free spirit, full of untapped love and passion. I think a lot of girls can relate to her. And it's very relevant in terms of kids defying their parents.
I wasn't a rebel. It kind of clicked in my head, like, if I want to do this, I can go out and do it. Some kids, it clicks for them, and it doesn't work out. But thank God for me it did work out. I put in all those hard hours of work, and it has gotten me to where I am.
I understand that in some families both parents have to work, so the kids are home alone eating more processed foods. But if the kids know how to make oatmeal or eggs in the morning or pasta or a lentil soup at night - we're giving them real survival tools.
I was raised in the greatest of homes... just a really great dad, and I miss him so much... he was a good man, a real simple man... Very faithful, always loved my mom, always provided for the kids, and just a lot of fun.
I found that so many people in the music business started out as metalheads in the Eighties - whether they're songwriters, producers, engineers or executives, and no matter what they look like, with short hair, suits or whatever. I feel like my generation of metal kids really tends to populate the music world to a large extent.
How are we supposed to get old? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to get old? My kids tell me, 'We want you to look like a grandmother.' I agree with them. I want to look like a grandmother.
You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.
With families, your priorities shift. You're not going to be like, 'Let's go out on tour year-round.' I have kids in school. You have to lay things out.
My kids have been watching a lot of 'My Little Pony,' and it's rubbing off on me.
You put too many songs on your record, and it ends up like a family with too many kids: some of them get neglected.
I grew up within Italian-American neighborhoods, everybody was coming into the house all the time, kids running around, that sort of stuff, so when I finally got into my own area, so to speak, to make films, I still carried on.
I love every minute of fatherhood, staying up all night, changing nappies, kids crying, I find it really funny and inspiring. It connects you to the world in a new way.
I cannot, will never, understand these couples who hate each other, who conduct open warfare in front of their children - the kind of people who have to drop the kids off at the end of the driveway in case they lay eyes on one another. At the very least, civility must reign.
I really feel sorry for kids who aren't interested in history - recent history, either, because it is this that made us what we are.
I love biographies. I read Patti Smith's 'Just Kids.' I'm into that time frame in New York, the '70s and '80s. In art school, I read 'Close to the Knives,' the autobiography of the artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz.
