I had a band with David Gates. There was just a lot of opportunity at that time. But I left for Los Angeles the week after I graduated high school, and I actually left to try to get into the advertising business. That was really why I went out to L.A. My music career was almost an accident.
In the record business, if you sign an artist that don't really know too much about the business, you can really get over on them in a lot of different ways, so it's a lot of people that don't give artist the game because they're trying to make the most money in the fastest way off their artists.
Usually when there are a lot of layoffs, like in 2008 and 2009, business creation tends to spike. But that didn't happen right away, partly because people trying to start a business couldn't get credit.
A lot of people want to be an entrepreneur, so it's important to know that there's a lot of ways to be an entrepreneur. One of the ways is to go about and start your own business. There are also ways that you can gain experience in the context of a larger business, like raising your hand to helm a new office. As you are gaining your skills to run your own business successfully, the first way is to think about how you can do so based on where you already are.
There are a lot of ways to make people not like you, but one of the most powerful - if least fair - is to be really, really successful. Nobody resents the guy who just lost his job. But the guy whose Internet start-up made him a billionaire at 25? That's a whole different kettle of envy.
In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm just taking the music that comes to me and trying to make it as beautiful as I can. You can't really predict or control how people will receive that music.
Obviously I want my music on the radio and I want my record to do well, but I also have a totally different career, so a lot of people who are in music are just in music and can dedicate all their time to that and I can't do that, so I really want to have both things and I'm just trying to figure out how.
I don't think of my music in terms of a career. I just want to get it out there and do it. I'm not manipulating my sound to be like anybody or trying to write to sound like anybody else.
I think the most exciting thing is that you expect people our age to know the music, but actually a lot of kids know the music, and if anything is left, we have left really good music, and that's the important part, not the mop-tops or whatever.
I made a really good start to my career, and there was a lot of speculation about where I'd end up going. Like I did then, I'm just trying to take this all in my stride and keep my feet on the ground.
I had been asked to start going out for roles here and there throughout my career, but I know that acting is a hard thing; it takes a lot of work, and I was traveling. I didn't have the time to really focus on it, so I really waited for the right project to come along.
I'm not really entertained anymore, everything sounds the same. We have a crisis right now of innovative music. I'm probably the only person left trying to do something different and brand new.
While a lot of people want to join the left to react against the mainstream or right, I in many ways react against the left - not a lot of its fundamental commitments, but its often dismal tone, righteousness, defeatism, etc.
We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up.
I am right at the bottom compared to everybody else with press kits and demos and trying to get meetings. That's what I love about music and hate about it. That's why I respect people that are successful in the music business because you really have to build it from the ground up.
Hopefully, there's a place in music for Tinted Windows. If we're really trying to be iconic, we should just stop right now. If one of us could die, that would also help. But I don't think anybody wants that gig.