"At this point I'm already in Suicidal Tendencies and I'm walking around school listening to Korn and Suicidal. I always had my headphones on and I had long hair, I kind of looked like a girl. I remember my friend called Carla, she gave me her copy of Evil Empire. It was really dope, it was one of the coolest moments ever, because she gave me a copy of her CD and then she gave me a kiss literally, and she said, 'this is yours.' I remember putting it in my CD player in my car and I've never sonically heard anything like that in my entire life. That shit blew my fucking mind. I didn't know what the hell to do with myself. I was like, 'who the fuck plays an instrument like this? What the hell is this?' Tom Morello's guitar lines were ridiculous. To this day, it's still ridiculous. If Jimi Hendrix were alive he would be like, 'what the hell is Tom Morello drinking!?' Then on top of that, add the part where they're from Los Angeles; it's a bit of a prideful moment for me. I don't ever have these moments where I'm like, 'Yeah, they from LA', but Rage Against The Machine, I felt like it was me. This is again identity; who this is and what this is – this is the sound of where I come from, this is how we sound. Then you mix Suicidal Tendencies in there, and I'm touring at this age already, so this was this made me want to play harder and more aggressive and made me want to exude more energy and play with power. That's where I learned that, and it moulded my years in Suicidal Tendencies. So Evil Empire, if I put it on in an Uber everybody's going deaf. It's Rage Against The Machine: I don't care – it's still too good. It's still too fucking good. They're getting ready to go back on tour this year. I'm gonna be the guy in the front row with the mouth guard and boxing gloves. Rage Against the Machine changed my life and will change yours on arrival."

"I just recently saw Slacker, actually, within maybe the last year and a half. It definitely marked a certain bracket of youth at that time—and more specifically, Austin. But I love the way he captured this lackadaisical, lethargic driftiness, and conversations and characters and life. I love that trick where people are just talking and walking down the street, and then suddenly someone walks out to get something from the mailbox or something and the camera just stays with them and it becomes their story for a moment. That structure totally fascinated me. Even when I was in Seattle in the ’90s, that idea of people just hanging out, and you don’t even know what you’re doing, you’re just spending time with people and talking philosophy, but it’s not really going anywhere. You’re just talking about things to talk about things, and I really identified with that. I’m surprised I didn’t see it back then. I’ve walked around Austin and done nothing and just had some random conversations with strangers and that spirit still exists there, to a certain extent. It’s not what people who are productive members of society would say is a good way to spend time, but I actually think nowadays that’s kind of a premium. I would like more of that in my life at this point, because just the overstimulation and how much information is pouring in constantly is ridiculous and also kind of false. There’s this sense of urgency and importance that we have with time. And a lot of it has to do with technology and the culture that builds around that. But I think a movie like Slacker is hard for people to watch these days. Their attention spans are much shorter, and Slacker is the antithesis. Many of the movies in the Criterion Collection are atmospheric, and sometimes people are like, “I don’t know what to do with this.” But to relax into it and use that as an example of another way of existing, I think, is important. So Slacker both reminded me of a time period and also kind of reminded me of the importance of that way of being."