Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.
Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
I'm just going to go out there, and if people want to put me on the front of their magazine or whatever, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine as well. I'm just going to go out there and make my music.
Once I accomplish one thing and I'm satisfied, I try something else. I may be 50 and doing something totally outside of music and acting. Maybe I'll become a kindergarten teacher.
I started growing my audience in small clubs through word-of-mouth. I started making music that isn't necessarily commercially viable, and it's not necessarily marketable to my peers to a certain extent.
There are people that bring artists to me to look at it and it's a question of whether I like their music and their look and if I think there's something they have that makes them different and commercial.
The band projects just took natural priority. I didn't really have a solo career, just wanted to share the music in another way and to learn more about writing, recording, etcetera.
My songs are all about celebrating poignant music. While some of them focus on fun and revelry, they are fortunately backed by powerful lyrics. Put together, the lyrics, tune and my voice strive to take the songs to the next level.
A lot of people who have been perceiving my music have been trying to formulate a genre for it, and I think it's just a natural thing; it doesn't need to be categorized. It doesn't need to be sectioned, if you will.
There's a vulnerability in music but you've also got to protect your sacred place and have a place you can still retire to that no one else knows about. So that's a thing I just try to balance.
People ask who I am as an artist, who I am as a person. I don't ever want to tell them who I am; you can find that out in the music.
This band is a real collaboration, and I'm greatful to anybody who can appreciate our music. It doesn't have to be a certain kind of fan or person or anything. I think there's a little bit of something for everybody on this record.
If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.
Bringing people together is one of my favorite things... I believed that's what a rock 'n' roll Jesus would really do - bring people together through music.
I studied communications, only because I could get my own show on the campus radio station. I never thought of it as a career. Music was always a really passionate hobby - it was like collecting DVDs or stamps.
Music leaves such a big impression. I always wondered, 'Man, if I grew up in Nashville, would I be making Country records now?' I honestly feel like Chicago had such a big impact on me.
When I graduated college, I had a fairly successful weekly club gig and was buying more studio equipment and writing my own music. I realized I didn't want to work.
I think people need to have fun with whatever they're doing - makeup, their clothes, music, live shows - anything you don't need to take too seriously, don't take too seriously.
I don't think shoving my butt into people's faces will tell them anything about who I am. How is that connecting to your audience? What is that doing for your music?
My sound definitely pays a lot of homage to the Nineties, but not just the dance music. There's also breakbeats, R&B, the big ballads. It's that whole era infused with very modern sounds.
I think the industry is oblivious to the fact that most people listen to all kinds of stuff. I personally don't know of anyone who listens to only one genre of music. It's vanity because no one does.
