There were so many specific things from high school jazz band that I remembered: the conductor searching out people who were out of tune, or stopping and starting me for hours in front of the band as they watched.
We've been through the experience of being in high school and starting a band. Then we were also a garage band, while we were going to college, trying to make ends meet.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
I finally got to junior high and I got to start saxophone. There were a few of us that were in the beginner band in sixth grade that made it to the advanced band, which was called the morning band at our junior high school in Staten Island.
When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.
I remember when the O.J. verdict was read; at my high school, all of the teachers were like, "We are stopping class right now," and turned it on and we watched it. There were people coming out of their classrooms, like, "Yeah!" Some people were like, "Nooo." I was in Spanish class.
When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.
My first love of jazz came from joining the Chilliwack Middle School band - it was like an 18-piece jazz band, and I wanted to join just because the older kids looked like they were having so much fun.
My band got signed in high school when I was 16, and we all dropped out of high school and went on tour. Then I quit the band because I was the manager, and I was doing everything, so I went solo.
I've always seen My Chemical Romance as the band that would have represented who me and my friends were in high school, and the band that we didn't have to represent us - the kids that wore black - back then.
What's interesting about Vampire Weekend, everyone in the band, except for me, had a band in high school in which they were the lead singers. And I'm the one who never had that experience.
In high school, we had a really great jazz program that I finally was able to be a part of. They only wanted instrumentalists; they didn't want any singers. But I made my way in, and I remember the conductor of the band wrote a lot of arrangements and asked me what I wanted to sing.
I wish I could tell you me and my rock band were traveling around, strung out. No, we were a family band. Straight Partridge Family.
I was in a rock band; I was my own folk singer; I was in a death metal band for a very short time; I was in a cover band, a jazz band, a blues band. I was in a gospel choir.
We weren't like mates who decided to form a band. The other three met me because they were interested in being in the band that I was starting.
Over the years, the critics have said, 'They never change.' Maybe the little guy's got a new color of school uniform. I always thought, 'Well, what were we going to change into?' A jazz band? A keyboard band?
My dad was all about music. He was a musician, leading a band when I was born. His band was active all through the 40s. He'd started it in the late 20s and 30s. According to the scrapbook, his band was doing quite well around the Boston area. During the Depression they were on radio. It was a jazz-oriented band. He was a trumpet player, and he wrote and arranged for the band. He taught me how to play the piano and read music, and taught me what he knew of standard tunes and so forth. It was a fantastic way to come up in music.