We were playing a show in Los Angeles and suddenly a high school marching band appeared at the side of the stage. I have no idea why. With all their instruments and everything. And the girl with the trumpet kept trying to throw her trumpet on stage. So finally, in the middle of a song, Mike (our bass player) took the trumpet on stage and tried to play it, which he couldn’t. So he poured a bottle of beer in it and drank it through the trumpet. (Which I didn’t know was possible.) The girl was so excited it looked like her head was going to explode. The whole thing was so strange, like a Fellini movie..

Classic Album or Artist You Discovered This Year

Wreckless Eric

Best Film You Saw This Year

Man on Wire

Favorite new gadget, technology, site or application you can't live without

IShazam, that thing where you hold it up to a song that’s playing and it tells you what the song is. I don’t actually use it very much and it doesn’t actually work very well, but every time I think about it my heart is filled with wonder at the age we live in.

Artist You Are Most Excited About In 2009 (any medium)

I’m excited for the follow-up to Chinese Democracy. That should be coming along soon.

Your Latest Guilty Pleasure

I recently saw Robocop 2. Amazing.

What should President Obama change first in 2009?

That poor guy is about to inherit the worst job in history. Where do you begin? I don’t know. I guess the world economic situation is the most frightening thing at the moment.

A Memorable/Humorous/Classic Moment on the tour bus/road in 2008

We were standing in line at an airport in Miami when suddenly a Hassidic Jewish man came right up to me and started talking loudly to me in Yiddish, like we were friends. I was really confused, and then started to realize that I had long hair and a beard (we’d been on tour a long time), I was wearing all black, and a black hat. There was a pause for a second, and then the guy got really embarrassed and walked away. Another strange experience.