I've written several deeply personal songs this year, which I really love. Some of them came out of intense sadness. This has been an extremely difficult year for me.

Many of the songs on Undertow were written at the time Opiate came out.

Songwriting is the most terrifying thing to me, because you are really laying your heart out there.

As a person, I'm not that hopeful, but somehow the hopeful part of me reveals itself through my songs.

The only crystal ball even more difficult to read than where one's own personal situation may be is where the country is headed and what the country's economic situation will be in 20 or 30 years.

It's an interesting line that I walk. The AIDS crisis has done a lot for my songs and made them proliferate, and my songs have contributed a lot to that cause as well.