Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: "The first song I learned to play guitar and sing to at the same time was a Tom Waits song called 'Time,'" Samson says. "It was a pretty odd picture: I was about 13, my voice had just broken, and there I was in my parents' suburban home during the Christmas holidays singing one of the most world-weary songs ever."

She Left You, Move On: Although Samson's got more than his fair share of songs about girls he drunk-dialed at 4 A.M., he's forced himself past that. "There's a danger in relying for too long on the 'You-done-me-wrong/I-hate-my-parents/My-friends-are-annoying' themes that all novice songwriters write about. There's nothing wrong with those songs, I just think that after a certain point you should have a quota---you should only be able to have two songs per record like that. The other ones, you should challenge yourself to write about other things."

Dumbing It Down: "A huge element in music today that drives me nuts is all these well-educated, smart young people starting garage bands and pretending that they're stupid. One of the worst things about the world right now is people being afraid of sounding smart. I mean, I think Jackass is hilarious, but I don't want it to be the foundation of our entire culture."