Looking back, I think I was always musical. My dad was very musical, and I think my mom was musical.
In the original draft I was 27 and Peter was 55 in the script. That's not the same as a guy in his 40s and a dad in the end of his 70s. It's a different point in both our lives.
My dad worked as an executive at Lockheed Aircraft and worked on the U-2 and things like that. My mother was a homemaker, and she was vice-president of the Democratic Council of California back in the '50s.
I was always going to make music, but I cleaned up my act a lot just to be a good dad and a husband. That sort of changed my career professionally, too.
My dad was always busy. You would pop round for a cup of tea, and within minutes you would see him walking past with a step-ladder. He was always fixing things.
When my book 'Rich Dad's Prophecy' was released in 2002, most financial newspapers and magazines trashed it because I discussed a looming stock market crash.
I read a lot of research notes about the countries I visit, and my mum and dad bought me a Kindle, but I'm still getting to grips with it. I prefer paper books.
My dad took on every job he could get. He worked like mad. But then, at some point, he had saved up enough to open his first pub.
I'll probably always be 'Timothy Spall's son' and it's something I'm proud of. Maybe one day as well as that, they'll say of Timothy Spall that 'He's Rafe Spall's dad'.
You know, no matter what I am or what I do for a living, I'm still, you know, the husband and the dad and the protector of the house, and I have to be conscientious about that.
There are certain topics songwriters stay away from because it's hard to go there. I didn't sit down and go, 'I want to write something about my dad now.'
My mother always taught me, even my dad, just never let other people's opinions of you shape your opinion of yourself. And I never have and I never will.
My dad died in 1980, and I found out afterwards from mum that my piano lessons, which cost £2 a week, took up nearly a third of his income.
Math was always hard for me, but my dad would come up with ways of making it fun. I remember playing 'Number Munchers' on our old Mac... That counts as math class, right?
One of my insecurities was my looks. I was short, cute and chubby, and Dad used to call me his 'little fat sausage.' But I always knew I had musical talent.
When I was fifteen years old, my dad won a video camera in a corporate golf tournament. I snatched it from his closet and began filming skateboard videos with my friends.
I worked in Dad's stores, moving boxes - I remember quite well one stockroom that was upstairs - sweeping floors, laying tile. I also had paper routes.
Back in '93 and '94, when 'Dookie' was being made, my dad built this tour bus for us, out of a bookmobile. We toured in it for the first year. It was a really bad idea, by the way.
Dad went to Canada to learn how to fly with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He took me on my first airplane ride, where I could have a hand on the stick.
Nine per cent of my viewers are men, of which the majority is, I think, 45 to 50. I like to tell myself it's just my dad watching.
Whether by a Mack truck or by heart failure or faulty lungs, death happens. But life isn't really just about avoiding death, is it? It's about living.
