The head sculptor, who became a mentor to me, said that the most important thing he'd ever learned was that you have to figure out what your number-one passion is and throw everything into that. And that if you didn't do that, then you're not really serving your purpose in the world, because you're not going to put that extra effort in. And I knew I loved music, so I just quit and decided to pursue it.
There was a piano in my house, and my brother had taken lessons when I was a kid. I don't remember this, but my mom told me she came home one day and I had learned everything he had studied for a year, and I was playing it on the piano.
I still only play by ear. I don't have any training. But the piano actually makes more sense to me than guitar, even though I play more guitar now. And then, it wasn't till later that I started really writing songs. Writing songs was an outlet that I needed, so I became obsessed with it. It allowed me to express a bunch of stuff that had been piling up.
Because I usually write so autobiographically, it's nice to have someone else's story or a visual and just focus on the music.
I think sometimes since we have so much technology today it's easy to overproduce things and perfect things in a way that's not really natural, and I've always really gravitated toward imperfections and just the essence of the thing.
