L.a. Music Scene Quotes

I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians.

I'm a real genre jumper, but all good music belongs to the same family. I love Dave Sitek, a producer I've been working with a lot since I moved to L.A. He will change the game.

I grew up playing the saxophone. I joined the jazz band in high school, but somewhere along the way I realized the guys who strummed acoustic guitars at parties were the ones who got the attention. So I asked a friend to show me a few chords, and when I moved to L.A. I spent a lot of time practicing my guitar.

The first musical stuff I worked on was after the tour for 'Swing Lo Magellan' had ended and I didn't really know what else to do. I didn't know what music I would write. I just did work for other people - arranging, producing, writing - and all of that seemed to be in L.A.

I think in L.A., in terms of the music scene, it's a really strange place. It's really hard to get the feeling that something's happening, or the feeling that something can make it out of there.

I was in school with Dweezil Zappa, Frank Zappa's son, and we had a band. Only in L.A. could stuff like that happen. We would hang out in Frank Zappa's studio, and we released a single in 1982 on his label. I was 12, and that was the first recording experience I had. To top it off, Eddie Van Halen produced it.

I'm just used to the L.A. music life.

A lot of people still don't realize that, before Rascal Flatts, I was in a Christian band for four or five years, and I had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest pop musicians and producers in L.A. I learned a lot from Peter Wolf; he was one of my heroes growing up in the '80s. He was a producer of a lot legendary pop music.