I didn't get into the music business because somebody made me take piano lessons, you know. I got into music because I was a natural writer and had a lot of curiosity about sound.
My brother and I played music together, and we all liked to show off. But I wasn't a particularly musical kid. I did piano lessons and quit. I got kicked out of the choir.
I believe I inherited my sense of music from my father. My father was an ear piano player; he could just hear something and play it.
I started playing the piano when I was 6 years old 'cause my folks tried to get me away from the gramophone. And I just - I lived for music since I could think. And they got me piano lessons. So by the time I was 13, I was quite an accomplished piano player and musician.
Everyone can write their melodies and chords and pianos and guitars, but what hasn't been discovered yet are tones and textures, and that's very exciting. Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else.
Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it.
I grew up with the British-Chicago crossover of house music with a lot of pianos and very heavy bass lines, but what I love about house is you can mix it up a bit.
I sit around listening to classical music. I don't play video games. I love to go to dinner, go on picnics, travel.
I'm sick of all these labels and these manufactured subdivisions of music that don't even exist. And even though I'm pierced myself, I'm sick of everyone equating body piercing with musical courage. If you ask me, it takes a lot more than that.
With regards to music, I don't want to pigeonhole myself and say I am a musician or a visual artist, because I feel like it's all-encompassing, and I feel like every bit of my art is related to the other.
I have an addictive personality. I was addicted to computer games... and then all that obsessive nature just piled into music.
For me, I guess the general reason for using social media is that the connection I have with people who are interested in my music is extremely important to me. That connection is like the pillar in everything I do. I want to embrace that connection and make it stronger.
I take inspiration from so many places. I think, more than anything, it would have to be the music made by others that I've then fallen in love with, whether it's Madonna, Blood Orange, Fleetwood Mac, or Pink Floyd!
And I'm interested in writing music that takes risks. My point is that maybe the term EDM is pinned on me and my buddies, but maybe it'll be less so if I experiment.
I feel like when it comes to rap - like, real rap music - and knowing the pioneers of rap, I feel like there's no competition for me in the NBA. Other guys can rap, but they're not as invested or as deep into actual music as I am and always have been. I think that might be what the difference is. I'm more wanting to be an artist.
I grew up listening to a lot of Usher at 13 and 14. I have every Usher album that ever existed. So I grew up listening to a lot of Usher, Michael Jackson, Luis Miguel, a lot of pioneers in Latin music.
Books are so cheap and easy to get that people don't bother stealing them, which is the essential rule of piracy that the music business learned much too late.
The approach that the music industry took to fight piracy was the wrong strategy.
The Internet is both great and terrible. As a source of information, a tool for delivering music and art, it's great. But spamming ads and piracy of music is terrible. It's stealing.
I've always said, I thought the Sex Pistols was more Music Hall than anything else - because I think that really, more truths are said in humour than any other form.
