Blackheart Records being 25 years old represents staying power and the fact that we weren't able to get a record out through conventional means, so we had to create this record company to put out our records if we wanted to be a band that had records to give out to their fans.
Well, the album 'Intuition' is out and just went platinum officially. So I think to have the music doing what it's doing right now, man, it's the ultimate. Nobody is really selling records out there but we are at a million records and we dropped it at Christmas, so we are just trying to get that thing to like two million, you know.
I'll be honest with you, one of the things that frustrated me the most out the record leak thing, it had nothing to do with record sales - I mean, that's a joke. Has anybody looked at how many records anybody sells anymore? If you're not Jay-Z, a record leaking isn't going to affect you. It was just really personal.
It's a sense of pride, a sense of you set out to get a record deal, and we got that. We set out to get a No. 1 record, and then we got that. Then you say, 'Wow, that was impossible and now even more impossible is to stay No. 1 and stay current and put out new records that people care about,' and we really stuck to that.
They [ Factory Records] are always looking for the next group, the next big thing, to bring the record sales in and for them to promote and everything, but Factory just sign who they want to, put records by who they want to out, package it how they want to, how they like doing it. It's just run like that.
Back in college, when I got kicked out of school, I was still in school, I'd just written the song that got me my record deal. If I hadn't gotten kicked out of school I wouldn't be where I am now. Three months after that, I got my record deal and the rest is history.
One thing that did get me into a lot of different types of music was when I was very young, the local record store went out of business and they were selling off all the vinyl. I remember going in - I was probably 16 or 17 and I'd just gotten a record player as a present. It was like hitting the jackpot: all these records for $3 apiece.
Red House Painters were doing cover songs before our first record deal. I remember live shows where we did an AC/DC song; I think we did 'Send In The Clowns' by Judy Collins. We did 'The Star Spangled Banner,' which came out on our third record.
Look at all those American preachers who got caught with their pants down. They say one thing and they are doing another. I try to be more honest about it, both in my thinking and my behavior.
More recently I've come to terms with what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. That's why you start to see me recoiling from 'let's put out radio records, let's get rich and get on out of here.' I have gone towards more speaking to kids and putting out records that I like.
I like doing live stand-up because that's where I started. If you do TV and radio you just send it out into the ether and you never find out if people like it or not. To go out and make an audience laugh is nice.
My dream right now is - and I don't know how to do it, and I don't know if it will work exactly - but just this sort of vague aspiration to start some kind of website where people send in their stories or poems, and me or perhaps some other people turn that into music. And then by the end of the year we make a record and actually put it out. Like a band, but the band is actually a combination of the musician and the fan. I think that's a very 21st-century way of doing it.
I've always known, before I had a record deal, that the thing is to go out and put on the show. I've been doing that from day one.
I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.
For me, music is sort of my passion, more so than being an actor. I just never tried to make a career as a musician. It was just something that I did on my own time, just for me. I had written a lot of songs, but I don't really record a lot of music because, for me, it's the same way as a poet: I write to get things out. It's sort of cathartic.
For me specifically, I think college benefited me. Just getting me out of doing, getting me out of what I was doing before. I was just doing the same thing, you know, every day, same schedule, just practicing, training, things like that.