Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals.
I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn't express to an individual, I would express them in my music.
My music is like a diary. I use every experience.
If you take the duality of things - like sunny-sounding music with weird lyrics on it - it makes this dichotomy. I've never had that because when I make music, I make major chords, happy-sounding stuff, and my lyrics are positive.
From my early training days, I am an avid listener of heavy music which is laced with proper diction and effective use of grammar of music.
I think it's awesome to see people of all different ages from all kinds of backgrounds come together for the love of music.
I'm not afraid to have my music digestible by different ages.
All my siblings being all different ages meant I got exposed to music that was 20-30 years older than me. And that was a big influence.
I may be taking a different approach, being a guy leading a band with a trombone, but if you take that out of it and put in a guitar or keyboard, it would be considered funk-rock music.
Singing in church is a very different approach to music. It's very much about transcending the idea of self. It's about finding something greater that connects all of us. Gospel music is about tapping into that.
Prior to getting into music, I interacted with, on a daily basis, about 5-10 percent of the people that I've interacted with since then. I've been meeting people from different backgrounds and different cultures. That did allow for a lot of change. I've changed as a product of that, but it's been positive.
When I write music, it's very strange: maybe it's normal, but I see things in songs in different colors.
Wrestling can be as much or as little as you want it to be. Everyone likes different movies, different music, different colors. They have a right to their opinion, but to say, 'This isn't wrestling,' well, yeah, it is.
My dad had these great Benny Goodman albums that I was obsessed with, and Louis Prima's another guy I loved, and Peter Niro the jazz pianist. I loved international music: Irish music, Mexican music. I love the different colours that they all have.
I've been into Sonic Youth since junior high school. I think I kind of have ADD, so it's good music for ADD because it just throws you in different directions all the time. I really like Kim Gordon's voice and Thurston Moore's voice, and I like the guitars going off on tangents.
When a person listens to a good song, and they can look out at the world and their lives and see the dark and the light, the negative and the positive, all the different elements, all come together in one holistic poem, that is a very healing and very reductive thing, and that's what my music is about.
It's always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn't. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it's music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic... You're pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I'm a musician.
It's striking and unique in London how you know to create this alchemy between the concept, the food, the music, the staff. From the beginning to the end, with all these different elements, it tells a full story that you know very well how to develop and cultivate.
It is kind of easy for me to speak out. Just because I am very vocal in my music about a lot of different emotions, like anger, and normally stuff that people would hide, I'm okay with as a woman.
I make music for people to relate to and to connect with me. I want to tap into different emotions.
