When you grow up in the music industry, trying to be Britney Spears because that's what sells records and then you realize, 'All I have to do is be myself? I should have thought of that a long time ago,' it feels good to have success come from what's actually inside of you.

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.

I write music with an exclamation point!

What is music anyway? It's a form of communication, and that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people.

I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

For some reason, the evolutionists have not come up with an evolution-based explanation for why human beings react so powerfully to music. But surely they will.

I'd love to do a modern-day musical that's full of original music. To get your contemporaries to sing and dance without looking foolish and for it to be transformational and magical and all those things a musical is supposed to be.

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

I tend to score with songs from Western pop music.