MARK HOPPUS

From a very early age, my wife and I told our son that there are times and places for everything. I told him, look, when you're in class, you have to be quiet and listen to your teacher, but when you go out to the playground, you can scream and be silly.

Thank God I never got in a fight. All of the jock dudes hated me, but all of their girlfriends thought I was nice so they wouldn't touch me. It was infuriating to them.

All I can hope to do is instill great morality in my son and trust him along the way. The music he listens to or how he chooses to wear his hair doesn't define his moral compass, and if he wants to listen to country music and wear a cowboy hat too, that's fine.

We're really good friends and we hang out. It's like I get to hang out with my friends and get paid for it.

'The White Album' is a record I can go back to time and time again, and always find something different that I never noticed or appreciated before.

I lived in small town out in the desert and my friend used to steal his mom's car in the middle of the night. He'd drive over to my house, I'd sneak out and we'd go out to the desert and just burn things down.

I like the beaches in Orange County the best. I think Orange County has great beaches. Everything from Dana Point to Newport to Laguna; all over the place.

If we tried to write about politics, you'd realize that we're all a bunch of idiots.

Parents don't understand kids and kids don't understand parents. My parents were divorced when I was really young and I went to live with my dad.

Music is life. Music defines peoples' experience on this planet. Name one time in your life that wasn't punctuated by the music you listened to at the time. When people are down, they listen to music that commiserates that emotion. When people are amped up, they listen to more upbeat, loud songs.

I grew up the biggest fan of the Cure. Knew every lyric, had every album, B-side, single, poster, everything. Then cut to fifteen years later, and we're working on songs together. Ridiculous.

I miss the experience of walking into a record store and find old stuff without expecting to.

All the really pretty girls get pregnant.

I dated the same girl all through high school.

I never thought of punk rock as the absolute act of rebellion for the sake of rebellion. There's a lot of that in there, but for me I think punk rock was always about questioning things and making decisions for yourself, which is a great message to pass on to your kids.

Screw them. Yeah. But not literally. I'm not advocating promiscuity.

It's so easy to put music out that it's difficult to sift through stuff that I don't like to find stuff I do like.

The naked thing was short-lived. It was only around for about six months because we thought it was shocking. Once people expected us to do it we kind of never did it again.

I don't want to spend a month and a half in a studio with music I don't like, and fortunately I don't have to.

Getting to meet other artists that I admire is one of the best parts of my job. I don't know if I'd say 'star struck' as much as excited to hear other peoples' ideas.

I don't think of them as teenage songs. The things that happen to you in high school are the same things that happen your entire life. You can fall in love at 60; you can get rejected at 80.

The last few years I became a lot more into sports. Growing up, the sports I liked were independent sports, like skateboarding. I was really into skateboarding, and not necessarily team televised sports.

It totally ruins my voice. I quit smoking, drinking, and doing ecstasy.

I've learned some of the greatest life lessons from growing up in the skate and punk rock communities.

Ideas are really what interest me in producing a band, if I can bring something productive to the project.