In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.
There are peaks and valleys in anything and that is especially true for the music business. It is very inconsistent. But if you are wise, you can let those downs really bring you to another level of your personality.
My dad is in the music business in Nashville. I was the third child born in my family, and there are three notes in a chord, so that's how they came up with my name.
I suppose that by being absent from the music business, it appeared that I just dropped out, but really I never did. I was continuously working and doing various things.
Music can be so disturbing and frustrating. I mean the business side of it. The actual making music part is fun, but the business side of it is just so out of control, has nothing to do with anything.
No, I mean we'd all definitely involved in the music business someway or another, because we're all living with it, and in it, and also we've got all sorts of things we would like to do.
I was always a singer. But I was always focused on being an actor as my trade. Music I do just for me. The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible.
I really worked with icons in the music business, which really had a strong effect on me. It wasn't just pick-up gigs.
Nowadays, with the state of the music business, for any artist, whether you're up-and-coming or you've been in it for awhile, you have to explore different revenues and different ways of expressing yourself.
In business, you can have one massive success that earns $50 million overnight, and that's it. You're successful. End of story. But in the music business, you have to keep on doing it.
I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.
When I got into the music business in 1976, there weren't many women on the roster. As a woman, you don't complain; you work twice as hard, and you do your job.
That's why I do this music business thing, it's communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.
As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.
When I started working on my own music, I didn't have the chance to record in a big music studio, so I had to record everything myself.
I'm a musical theater guy. That's where I came from. That's where I go whenever I have the chance. It's my first love.
I love Cher Lloyd's music. I didn't actually hear her music as I was creating my own, but it's cool that we have styles that are considered to be similar.
I mean, what is music anyway? It's a form of communication - at least for me it is. And that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people.
I like to make the music that I really love. You're supposed to make your favorite music that no one else played, and I'd like to just keep it at that and not really change it at all.
Music is gathering. Taking our scattered thoughts and senses and coalescing us back into our core. Music is powerful. The first few chords can change us where no self-help books can.
Romantic music really stirs my soul. And, of course, I love Chinese music; it makes me feel closer to home.
