My school life was very much a wandering experience. I was having trouble in school and I was not making a lot of friends. So coming home and actually improvising on the piano and just coming up with melodies was an escape for me.
Grobanite makes me think of a type of harmless crustacean.
Every day I lugged my backpack through the halls, waiting for the final bell. Then I’d race home and hole up in my room, playing the drums and the piano, composing music.
Don’t give up. It’s just the weight of the world.
My biggest blast-off hit was ‘You Raise Me Up.’ If you ever have a wedding or a funeral, it’s a good pick.
As a new artist there’s always outside influences trying to tell you how to make a song better for radio and how to do your hair.
I think that my relationship with my fans has been very special from day one. It’s been very special in spite of the fact that I don’t think I would ever be able to call myself a press darling. I don’t think there’s ever been a superficial hype machine around me.
I’ve been aware of my gay fans since album one. There has been such great support from that community and it has gone both ways.
No matter who we are, no matter what our circumstances, our feelings and emotions are universal.
Musically, between me and my fans and also me and my team, who between management and record label have always just let me be me, it’s fun to pave a path. It’s fun to feel like you’re doing things your own way. So in that regard I haven’t had to worry about any bar but my own.
When you’re walking in, basically like a kid a candy store, to a project where there’s an endless canon of material, you have to step back from it as a self-indulgence. You have to look at it neutrally.
When I started in the music business, travel became a huge part of my world, where it hadn’t been at all. I visited parts of the world that I’d never been to and found that I was spending maybe 30 days at home a year.
My life is an unfinished product, but instead of just saying, ‘How do I top what I’ve accomplished,’ I decided I wanted to move forward, express my growth and take a big step into the next chapter.
Don’t try to be like me. Try to be like yourself. Try to be very good at being yourself.
I still like to keep all the love songs for the Grobanites, I like to make sure that they know those are just for them.
I did not practice hours a day for eighteen years to have my success attributed to a myth.
When it comes to the acting stuff, I like to show up for a couple days and kind of be outrageous and silly, and go back to my day job.
It wasn’t that I got pinned against my locker, but I was intensely aware that the things I valued weren’t shared by anyone. Girls didn’t like me, and I had few friends.
I like my hair long because I have really big ears.
I’ve been fascinated by music for as long as I can remember. I was the kid on the playground in the third grade who would tell other kids about Paul Simon or Depeche Mode.
Art matters because it is the one true great connector in a world that seems to be very unconnected.