There was always music playing in the house. I started singing at three, like my sisters did. When I was around four, we decided to put together a group and had so much fun with it.
My dad always had music playing around us and he was always a happy chirpy man with a beautiful voice. I was always singing around the house and I assumed that's what all families did. It wasn't until I went through that nasty teenage stage that I started to realise that wasn't the case.
My father was very interested in music, and when he and his brothers were young, they had a singing group that used to open for Sam Cooke. There was always music in our house, but there wasn't much art around.
I grew up in a home filled with music and had an early appreciation of jazz since my dad was a jazz musician. Beginning at around age three I started singing with his band and jazz music has continued to be one of my three passions along with acting and writing. I like to say jazz music is my musical equivalent of comfort food. It's always where I go back to when I want to feel grounded.
My parents say that I was singing before I could talk. I personally remember specific moments at three or four when music was playing literally all over the house.
I started singing about three years ago, I entered a local singing competition called Stratford Idol. The other people in the competition had been taking singing lessons and had vocal coaches. I wasn't taking it too seriously at the time, I would just sing around the house. I was only 12 and I got second place.
I was always singing around my house, and my parents thought they should put me into voice lessons just for fun.
Improv classes were too expensive, so I just started going to open mics. And the day I did it, I did, like, three because I just loved it so much. It was so much fun. And it wasn't good, it was just fun to do. It felt like a release.
When I was in New York, I put together a show; I put together this really great band and performed at this place called Littlefield in Brooklyn. It was really fun. I did, like, 10 standards, and then I just hopped around different bars like Mona's and different jazz clubs in New York just singing because I know all the standards so well.
My early life was full of music because my sisters played the piano and I started playing at three.
I started playing the piano from the age of three and I started teaching myself; we always had a piano round the house.
I've been playing my instrument since I was about three or four. That's when I started banging around on the piano, trying to be like The Beatles.
I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.
We did so much music together, before he got locked up, it's just, Gucci, he don't hold on to music. He like, Man, let's put this out, let's put that out, let's put this out. That's what he do. He like to put out a lot of music.
I started playing music when I was 18. My heart was just broken so badly that I decided that I really wanted to start playing music. It felt like the only thing that I could do in response to that. And I've been playing ever since.
I started singing by default, I think. Because there was a guy in the group that thought the group wasn't going to ever be anything. And I was getting ready to record, and I'd never recorded my voice. It was always other people that I featured because I thought they did a much better job.
I always liked really heavy guitar music, but didn't like the long-winded songs that went with it. And I always liked pop songs, but was driven nuts because the guitars were so wimpy sounding. So I decided to put the two together. That's how the Muffs started.