As long as I can remember, growing up we had a guitar around our house, and I was always plucking on it.
Well, my sister played trumpet. Can you imagine having a sister blowing the trumpet around the house, Fred? And my brother, he played piano. Everybody was playing some kind of music, so it was natural for me to get into it.
I grew up listening to a lot of rap music. My dad's a DJ from Brooklyn, and he's a very soulful guy, so he always spun a lot of hip-hop, and that's where I get a lot of my hip-hop influence.
Ask about music growing up, I'll tell you I grew up playing classical music, and I didn't grow up in a musical household.
Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.
My grandmother was a classical pianist, so I grew up with Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven. I studied piano as a kid. My musical background and upbringing was very much a mix.
I watched Elvis Presley become - I listened to Elvis Presley. I watched Chuck Berry become. I listened to Little Richard. I heard that music, and it was part of my upbringing.
Music's been with me from the get-go. It was always around me as a kid. Dad got me my first guitar when I was 11 and, at school, if you wanted to be cool you had to be in a band.
I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.
I always sang harmony with my family growing up.
My mum and dad are massive Bowie fans, so I grew up listening to his music.
I was a total music nerd. I grew up on Perry Street in the '80s. My father wrote books about jazz, so I was always at the 'Village Vanguard.'
I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.
Well, I was very lucky. I was brought up west southwest coast of Scotland and my mother and father had a music shop, and so I was surrounded by pianos and drums and guitars, and music, of course.
My mum was a music teacher. I've got three sisters, and we all played instruments when we were kids.
I grew up singing. My mother was a music teacher.
I'm not a guy who grew up in theater. I've always played in rock bands.
Growing up, I didn't come from a musical family. Neither of my parents played an instrument, sang out loud, or listened to the radio with frequency. The record collection in the living room was only about 2 feet long - and that included 4 solid inches of Neil Diamond and Herb Alpert.
I was raised around music.
I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.
We had a really vast music collection and I was raised around rock'n'roll, it's just the way it was.
I mean, I grew up in a very musical family.
My father played music, so I was always around music, even from the time I was born. My father actually was the one that originally got me into music.
Music's always been in my home. My dad plays guitar, and I grew up listening to cumbia and salsa and boleros.
I've always been music-oriented. My dad was a musician, and I listened to the radio all of the time.
