Playing music was something I wanted to do since I was 11 years old, so when we went on tour and started selling records, it was an incredible, strange dream.
— Mike McCready
I'm sober now and very happy.
You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials - guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.
Soundgarden are kind of the masters of writing songs that aren't pop cliches.
We were accused of sounding like a couple of bands when we started out. Aerosmith was one.
I'd love to have Jack White up. I think he's just a phenomenal guitar player. I'd love to see him play up close because he's got a killer voice, and he's a great lead player, too. That would be exciting to me.
I've always had this term 'mad season' in my head.
To be able to make a living doing what I love is truly a gift, and I'm thankful for that every day.
I try to dig deep into my soul to figure out something positive in the pain. I think I go to certain places when I play to heal.
I've always wanted to have keyboards in the band.
Crohn's doesn't define who you are. You are a human being; you are special and a great addition to society. Crohn's is just a part of your life. Try to be positive and proactive - therein lies the solution.
I've met a ton of new people who have colitis or Crohn's. Talking to them has been probably the most healing thing: to hear other people's attitudes on how they deal with their disease and how they stay positive.
I honestly grew up listening to the Stones more. But that doesn't mean I don't love the Beatles.
I was reading an article with Stevie Ray Vaughan a long time ago, and the number '1959' stuck out to me for some reason. So I started searching those out as the band got more popular and I could actually afford one. And I found this one in Los Angeles. That's what introduced me to the whole world of 1959s.
Crohn's patients differentiate their diet. You know, what I can handle and tolerate, another person couldn't, and what they can, I can't.
Polaroids were the instant thing to get a photo back when I started it. You had to wait two days to get your film back if you had a real camera, and I was more of an instant-gratification guy.
There are some people who have stayed with us our whole career, which is pretty cool too.
When we did our first record, my mindset was this is all going to be over tomorrow.
I think I bought into that whole rock n' roll lifestyle, and all that does in the end is kill ya. So I don't recommend it to anyone.
We want to push boundaries musically if we can and come at things from a different direction.
Reason why we've lasted so long is we write music; we get very intense. We go away from each other, do our own thing, and then we get back together.
I think about trying to make it better. That's all I do when we play 'Even Flow' or anything off of 'Ten': 'Let's do this the best we can.'
We try to keep everything as in-house and small and as punk rock and do-it-yourself as we can. That's part of our way of doing business.
It's hard enough just staying in the present. I can't tell you what's going to happen tomorrow.
I'm the kind of guy who wants to be involved in everything concerning our new baby. I don't want to miss a thing.
I'm amazed that people are even still wanting to listen to us.
There's this idea that, 'All I have at the end of the day is my mind.' That's the only thing you can control. I believe that.
Playing onstage, I'm always aware of where the bathrooms are. When Crohn's hits, I have to run, or it won't be pretty.
Every Crohn's and colitis patient is different, and they all respond to different things. That's the craziest thing about it.
Life is a pre-existing condition.
The older I get, the more I surf and do more stretches to get ready for the rock show.
Throughout my life of having Crohn's, I've been on and off prednisone when other stuff was not working.
There was no support system in Seattle for musicians.
There's Eddie's conviction and his lyrics and his ideals, and he can just rock straight out. His vocals are incredible. And we all are really competent musicians.
I don't ever want to play a festival again, period.
I hope we've lightened up over the years. We're fairly comfortable where we are, living-wise, and we're excited, honestly, just to still be around. I think we're less earnest than we were.
My mind has always kind of operated with this band like it's gonna be over tomorrow.
There's times when I go, 'We should have done a bunch of videos.'...Regardless of mistakes we've made, we made 'em, and we own 'em.
People will steal ideas and put them into songs.
As a band, we just don't tolerate any kind of abuse or intolerance of any kind of LGBT people by any kind of government.
I would love for people to enjoy our music and have feelings from it. That's all I can hope for.
Until Mad Season, I didn't have that confidence to write songs, and I really got it, playing with these guys. It meant the world to me.
I'll hear us on classic rock radio stations, and I'll go, 'Oh, my God, we're getting old!'
I've been denied coverage two times in my life - and it's after I've been in a big successful rock band. And I've a lot of met people who've been denied coverage who don't have the resources to fight the insurance companies. And they shouldn't have to do that.
I'm born, and I die, but in between that, I can do whatever I want or have a strong opinion about something.
I play 'Rock Band' with my friends' kids, and they completely beat me senseless with it. I feel like I'm holding them back. I try to play the drums, and I just can't play the drums. I think I need to work on my skills.
I'm surprised that we're around still. A lot of the bands that we came out with are not around.
When our band took off, we were all in this microcosm of a hurricane or whatever it was. It was a crazy, crazy dream come true with nightmares floating around it, and all sorts of stuff was happening, and my Crohn's was happening.
To just meet people that have Crohn's or colitis and to hear their stories gives me a lot of hope and a lot of courage.
Sometimes with Polaroids, the shot you want to get in your head doesn't happen. What it makes me do is be patient, I guess, or let go of that presumption of what the shot's going to be.
