Video Killed The Rock Star

I'm not romantic about the notion of "selling out." People who are not in your position deciding what is and isn't selling out I always thought was a crock of s---. The song I wrote, "Today," which ended up being a pretty big song--that song literally saved my life. I was completely suicidal, and I wrote that song in a cold bedroom on a day where it was like, "I'm either going to kill myself today, or I'm going to live because I'm sick of thinking about this." When I played it, it was an intense, extreme feeling. Last year, I was offered heavy, heavy money to license that song. I actually turned down two huge, huge, seven-figure-plus deals last year for two songs.

For "Today" and for which other song?

"Tonight, Tonight." That's a fundamentally difficult position to be in. At this point, it's just free money. Song's already been played. It's been exploited. The record company's literally begging me: go ahead and take these commercials. At this point in my life, I don't feel comfortable. Those songs are the reason I'm alive. If your music is not sacred to the point where it's a really, really, really heavy decision about whether or not you would allow somebody else to exploit it, then what's not for sale? For a long time there was this dream that you could hit this utopian point The Beatles hit. "All you need is love." You'd write that song that would change the world. That seems to have gotten lost. Now songs are just vehicles for personality. The song is not the sacred thing anymore.

Is the cultural climate one that would allow a musician to hit a "utopian point"?

Maybe the silver lining here is that people just don't need rock music like they used to. Maybe they feel better about themselves. The machinery of the entertainment business is so overwhelming. All people want to feel is that whatever they do is empowered. When everything is connected back to something, well, then where do you get that sense of feeling it was your decision? Maybe you hear a song on a McDonald's commercial and you buy the CD, but it's not like you heard about it in somebody's basement. When everything is everybody's, then nobody owns anything. This culture, I don't think, values the song. It doesn't value the icon. It values the moment and whoever feeds that moment. But we lose that it's human beings creating the moment. And when the culture thinks that it's the puppet master, then, of course, why wouldn't you have "American Idol?" One question that comes up a lot is, "How did you do it?" Like it's a trick. The code is 1-2-3, turn the knob to the left. It's not like that. But watch "American Idol." It says, "If you go 1, 2, 3 and turn the knob to the left, you win the whole thing." That's the wrong message.

© 2004