Having come up in the era where movies are only movies if they're released in the theater... I don't know if that holds true anymore. I've been involved in some movies that have gone 'direct-to-video,' and that used to not be a good thing, but now it's different.
When I first did 'Empire,' it was a severe break from everything I'd written up to that point, which is all very continuity-driven, super-heroic, and ethics and morals-infused. 'Empire' was a chance to break away from that.
Here's the most mysterious thing to me. I look back at those first plays I did and the first movies I did, and I only have one question, which is, 'What was I so confident about? Where did I get that?
The first thing I did as a child was draw. I wanted to make animated movies. I think Disney's 'Cinderella' was the first movie I ever saw. 'Peter Pan' was the first movie I ever saw in the movie theater. I grew up with 'Dumbo' and 'Pinocchio' and 'Sword in the Stone.' Those were the movies I wanted to make.
My favorite film is 'The Empire Strikes Back.' My writing, and my personal taste in movies and books, tends toward works with a darker tone, and 'Empire' fits that the best of all the movies.
One of the first movies my dad took me to see was the original 'Road Warrior.' And I was kind of raised on the action movies of that era: 'The Terminator' and 'Die Hard' and, of course, all of the 'Star Wars' movies.
I grew up on listening to, like, Mantronix and BDP and EPMD and Kool G Rap and Ultramag and Public Enemy and Fat Boys and Run DMC and a lot of those early records, those Rubin-era records. Those were always snare- and stab-heavy records.
What I did with my first records was, my writing process was that I didn't touch any instruments to write it, so I was making it all on the computer, and really the arrangements were coming first, the intricate thing.
That's the thing I love the most - making records and creating new things. That's always the thing that grabbed me. Making records is the thing that I really love.
The good thing about songwriting is you don't have to delineate between what's true and what's fiction; records aren't put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren't.
I wasn't a fanboy of horror. I didn't grow up on horror movies. I grew up loving all movies. I still love all movies, but I particularly love scary movies - as much for the culture around them as the movies themselves.
I did sing in another film called 'Empire Records' which is a cult film. 'Grease 2' is also a cult film. You either love it or just think the original was better.
We went through an era of big dance records, an era of hip-hop being the biggest thing on the planet. The people who really break through are the people who are not afraid to express themselves in how they feel.
My dad would play me all of these records: Miles Davis records, John Coltrane records, Bill Evans records, a lot of jazz records. My first exposure to music was listening to jazz records.
For me, I've always been intimidated by the computer coming from the era of record industry and record stores and buying records and looking at album covers, waiting in line for records when they came out and then ultimately being successful in a band where we recording pre-computer era.
I do like a lot of the '70s movies. I love Charles Bronson in 'Hard Times.' All my favorite movies where ones from yesteryear. The '70s was a good era. I love all those.