I've been touching instruments since the day I was born. My mother is Brazilian, and she listens to Brazilian music. My father was a musician, and I've seen pictures of him when he was in a band playing guitar and piano. He loved country music, Frank Sinatra, and stuff like that.
I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background.
My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument.
I was always into classical music and opera because I played the piano as I went through school and was very interested in Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and stuff like that. That changed into heavy metal at around the age of 14 or 13, and I dropped the piano and started to play the guitar.
I loved playing the guitar and I knew I was pretty good at it, so that's what I wanted to do with my life.
I've been singing since I could talk. I started playing the piano when I was about 5 or 6. I picked up the guitar on my 20th birthday.
When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so.
I was in a band in high school and college and I always had a love for music, but I didn't go to a conservatory or anything like that. I was fairly self-taught.
I think I'm always writing, and I'm always working, and I'm always trying to be creative. It's just something that I do all the time. I watch TV, and I'll play guitar.
That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.
I started to perform when I was 12... I don't talk too much. I let the music do the talking.
I figure I'm a mandolin player first and foremost, and everything else I've accomplished is just a scam.
It's real primal; I just like playing music.
I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.
Music is what I do naturally.
I formed my first band when I was going to Valley Torah High School in Los Angeles.
I'm a crap guitarist and I find it really hard writing on my own.
At the age of 16, something happened with my finger and the doctor told me, you never can be a organist or pianist, so think about what you do with music.
My whole musical life has been an educational process, and I'm just furthering my education and filling in the blanks. There's stuff that I want to know that I don't know.
When I was a kid, I was interested in folk music. But rock represented power, and I became the best rock guitarist in my school.
I ain't the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I've dedicated my life to music since I was 7 and my dad bought me a guitar and the 'Meet the Beatles' album.
I want to express my ideas through my music and on stage because I'm a musician.
I think people like Steve Vai are so boring.
What I always expect to deliver to my audience is a very entertaining evening of singing and playing.
After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.
