Lucky enough, through the public school system, I had been able to have some music education, and that gave me something to focus on, and discipline - like a family to feel part of. There was a healthy family.
Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach.
I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.
A Schubert song, the A-major chord at the opening of Wagner's 'Lohengrin' - such incredible beauty is a mystery, the divinity of music.
I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral music; also some Handel, mostly songs and arias; I like Schubert's and Beethoven's chamber music and Sibelius' symphonies; for opera, I listen to Mozart and in recent years Wagner.
But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach.
Music is a physical expression that has a physical impact upon the listener. Sound travels in waves through the air. This is not abstract. This is scientific fact. And it makes physical contact with the eardrum... and with the heart... and with the rest of the body.
I like streaming music. I'll be in the car going, 'I want to hear Scotty Anderson.' He's a great guitar player not many people know about - maybe me and two other dudes know him. But I love him, and I can pull him up on Apple Music, and there it is, right there in my car.
I don't care about what people might call my style. It's just like when people call my music 'jangly,' 'dream,' 'oceanside,' whatever - I don't care. I'm just wearing whatever I can scrap together.
I was 13 years old. I feel like I didn't have a sense of artistry, and I didn't have a sense of the music that I wanted to make, and every time I'd go into the studio, and I'd make my EP, a month later I'd scrap it and be like, 'I hate every song. I don't wanna do it.' Because that's how 13-year-olds are.
I would ditch school if my CD was scratched up or I couldn't get batteries. I wasn't trying to get on the bus and not be listening to music.
I've been working with a lot of people out in Hollywood on writing scripts, screenplays, directing, producing, and making music.
The show isn't about screens, and we don't have any video content or lasers or things blowing up. I want people to come to our show to listen. I want the show to be the music.
I've rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.
That type of autograph, pictures and apparel thievery was not part of what I grew up with. I loved the artists and their music. I would be thrilled to meet them, but the thought of getting a scribble or stealing an article of clothing never occurred or appealed to me.
I'll make a whole bunch of beats whenever, but unless I'm living through something or have a female in mind, or have a conversation in my phone I could scroll through, I'm not making music.
When I was touring in Texas, that was before iPods and Spotify. Driving around through towns, I had to, out of necessity, scroll the radio. Whatever region of the country you are in, that's a great way to find out what they listen to. You find music wherever you are, and that becomes the soundtrack for whatever your road trip is.
If you scroll through all the movies I've worked on, you can understand how I was a specialist in westerns, love stories, political movies, action thrillers, horror movies, and so on. So in other words, I'm no specialist, because I've done everything. I'm a specialist in music.
I know how to do music, no matter how weird I look on stage with the face paint, mask, and hospital scrubs.
Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.
