Bert McCracken

"It's always fun to climb into a dress when you're having a party, right? So we were having a party and I did just that, I poured myself into a dress. When I woke up - and I woke between the kitchen cabinets - I wasn't wearing the dress any longer. No idea where it went. It was a nice dress as well, a little black number. Do I look good in a dress? Always."

"I cry all the time. In fact, I cried when we were at the Islington Academy. I got a bit teary-eyed at the crowd's reaction to our show. We were playing a song called On My Own and the response from the audience just got to me. Sometimes the love in the room is so overwhelming that I just cry. I'm not ashamed of that."

"No matter how many times people try to pick my lyrics apart … nobody will really understand what these songs truly mean to me because I would rather not get into it."

"We definitely didn't want it to be anything like our first or second records. We wanted to experiment more than we ever had and take any new idea and run with it as far as we could."

"Yeah, I'm definitely a completely different person onstage than offstage. It just comes from inside me. Everything that has happened to me up 'til now has everything to do with who I am today. It feels good to just be able to get on stage and release lots of suppressed emotion, things that aren't necessarily on the outside of who I am."

"Whether the color of your skin is black, white, yellow, brown or purple -- the extent of this tragedy is so incredibly devastating that we had to do something."

"So like we say, our weakness is our strength too. It maybe makes it hard as hell on a day-to-day basis. There's (always) some kind of tribulations or trials going on with us, whether it's in our inner camp or just inner demons of our own. It's definitely not an amazingly functioning unit at all times. There's no bull---t with that. Behind the scenes is as interesting as what people are seeing up front."

"I just kind of thought about doing this my whole life. I never doubted myself once. I've always been singing, and I've always wanted to be on tour with a rock band."

"I've rebelled against all types of conformity throughout my life, not just Utah's conservative culture. I rebelled against the Mormon church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys."

"Put your arm around the buddy next to you. And if you don't have any friends, I'll be your best friend in the whole world."

"I'll never be bothered if I don't have a hit because you look at the songs that are hits and they're none of my favourites. Just the fact that we do have fans waiting here, that's exciting enough."

"I'm very self-destructive. I take it way too far most of the time. I'm the type of person who likes to jump into things hard. I do know my limits and I'm continually learning more about myself, as far as being hungover the next day or saying things that I don't mean or ruining other people's good times."

"I would say that I was just as anxious to leave Utah as any other kid in any other part of the world wants to get out of where they're from. It's definitely a hard place, especially if you're an artist. There's not much support for art, especially rock 'n' roll music. It wasn't really about escaping Utah, though. It was about getting out and being able to do what I wanted to do with my whole life. And now I am."

"I think about it sometimes, but it definitely doesn't bother me because genres are meant to last and we're a rock 'n roll band and screamo, emo, grunge, punk, prog … it s still rock 'n roll to me. I think that we're four really talented dudes, and I'm ready to take on the whole world. I'm not afraid."

"I'm going to give you a nice, romantic kiss on the lips."

"I kind of wanted to open it up a little bit more this time and kind of expose a little bit more of my vulnerable side. The most important thing for me was to share exactly how I felt because I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of people who can relate."

"If there is a God, he or she or it or whatever higher power there is is behind us so long as we're using our music in an inspirational way. I'm here for a reason, and I was given a talent, so I'll continue to try to use it."

"When people hear our record, they're not going to be able to put us into the 'New Metal' category or the 'pop-punk' category or the 'aggressive emo' category. I think people will be able to take it for what it is."

"When my body gets so overexerted with energy, I just keep going and going."

"Everything influences you in the way that you present your art to other people and the way that you create your art for yourself. Life is pretty much the influence, so growing up in Orem, Utah, and growing up in the church is obviously a huge factor in it for me. But there's a few others in my band that weren't raised in the church. So it's a combination of a lot of things."

"This is a song about the reason we all came down here today, and that's because we (expletive) love music. This is a crowd-surfing song."

"When I hooked up with them I was still going to Narcotics Anonymous. But they were never into drugs. If it weren't for the band, I think I'd still be getting high."

"My voice does get a little gruffy every once in a while, but I've never lost it 100 percent. I do try to warm up my voice before I go out there, but it's more of a nonchalant approach to taking care of it. Just some scales - deep throat valve sounds and what-not. I never like to stress out about it or worry about teas."

"Classifying rock music is an easy way for kids to identify with it. A band like Finch screams and sings, so they classify that with the Used because I scream and sing. But at the same time, we are worlds different. When I was listening to Nirvana, I never got involved in the fact that they were grunge-rock or whatever people were starting to call it at the time. I was raised listening to many different things. But everything has to be put into a category. That's fine with me. The music says enough."

"Bert is super kind, a super sweetheart, but he's pretty crazy at the same time. He's a little manic, but he definitely has a great heart and a great soul. He's just a little bit hard to hold down. Which is good. It's a great quality for a frontman."

"When I was dating Bert (McCracken), we were like two best friends. And we ended up doing everything together and it was so much fun. It was a really good time. And this (2003) has been such a horrible year for me that I sometimes thought I'd like to go back to that and be with Bert, but then I suddenly realised that's not what I wanted. I don't even know him as a person. And more than that, I don't even like him. It's like they say that you don't know the devil but you know he's evil. I know what that means — I don't know Bert but I know that I don't ever want to see him again."

"We were tired of writing music that sounded like everybody else, and we were stuck in this rut for so long of just trying to emulate our favorite bands. We're just going to write stuff that feels good, sounds good. And if other people don't like it, oh well. Then we remembered Bert from just playing shows with his band. So we gave him a call and he happened to not be in any bands. The timing was like perfect."