It's something we, guys, have all done. Made tapes for girls, trying to impress them, to meet them on a shared plane of aesthetics. Read them someone else's poetry because they do poetry better than you could do it, because you're too awkward to do it. ↗
There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration, which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America, but I remember as being a very, very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air; the punk rock movement made sense. ↗
Fans made me. The fans gave me a chance, and they made me. Beyond that, my career has been trials and tribulations and ups and downs, so I have to have true fans riding with me. ↗