Half the time I feel like I'm appealing to the downer freaks out there. We start to play one downer record after another until I begin to get down myself. Give me something from 1960 or something let me get up again. The music of today is for downer freaks and I'm an upper.

I'm learning to accept the lack of privacy as the real downer in my profession.

This CD became something of a personal journey for me. The tone of the whole CD is uplifting and inspirational. It's an upper. We have enough downers in the world.

'American Horror' goes for a very specific kind of Seventies suburban downer ambience - 'Flowers in the Attic' paperbacks Black Sabbath album covers and late-night flicks like 'Let's Scare Jessica to Death.' It even has 'Go Ask Alice'-era urban legends.

One of the greatest things drama can do at it's best is to redefine the words we use every day such as love home family loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.