My first memories of music are of my mother playing Dominican music in the house because my parents love to dance. They love to throw parties and dance, so there was a lot Latin music in the house.
I was listening to a lot of really early house music tracks. Like Chicago house and Detroit. And Marshall Jefferson has a track probably from 1980 - somewhere around there - that doesn't actually have any electronic instruments, no drum machines, nothing. Just a drummer and a piano player and they're playing this house music, but they're actually playing it. I really love that aesthetic and wanted to bring that into the album.
Everything I do, I'm always playing music. When I wake up in the morning, I'm playing music. When I'm showering, I've got music playing. When I go to the field, music is playing.
My dad went to medical school, and when he studied he listened to music so he has a ridiculous CD collection. That was always something we had growing up from him; there was always good music playing at the house.
I think my love of music comes from my dad. I was born with an ear for music, like him, and started with the piano when I was 4 but fell in love with the drums. My dad always has music playing.
When I was growing up, my dad would always be playing Motown around the house. He loved Stevie Wonder and the Supremes and got me into Dionne Warwick. It was the best music I'd ever heard. It was just that extremely deep, human, thought-out stream of ideas. You can always hear something new when you listen to that music.
My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles - I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.
I love music. I've just been putting studios together, here and at my house in New Jersey and so I can always make music and express my ideas and work with people to fine tune them to where they need to be.
You know when I started playing music as a young man I felt the need to be noticed and to prove myself. My motivation is much different now but what's still left is the love of music and the joy of entertaining people- the feeling that I make a difference, giving something back rather than just taking. Every year or two I come out with new music, or new arrangements of old music which keeps my show fresh.
We love all kinds of music: We love pop music, we love rock music, we love R & B and country, and we just pull from all our influences. So I don't really take offense as long as people are coming out to the shows and buying the records and becoming fans of the music. At the end of the day, the music is what's gonna speak to you.
I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.
When I'm representing my music live I think of it very much in a rock band sense. When I first started doing festivals in the 90s there really weren't other DJs playing the stages I was playing. So I felt I was being afforded an opportunity to kind of make a statement about what DJ music can be live. In the 90s, if you were a DJ you were in the dance tent, and you were playing house music and techno music. There was no such thing as a DJ - a solo DJ - on a stage, after a rock band and before another rock band: that just didn't happen.
When I was in London I found house music and techno, and I love that s - t. It's my go-to music. It's the closest for me to the old funk of James Brown and the repetitive dance music that I like from the soul music. I'd love to do a live album, like a little bit old school but still progressive, influenced maybe by more electronic music. I like everything, but I don't know anything about music. So it comes in to a lot of different ingredients.
My mother got me into music when I was a little kid. She used to play music, blast it, when she was cleaning the house, while I was crawling around. I just love loud music.
If you're in music, you're in music, and if you're in music you just want to keep making records and playing. That's what it's about, isn't it? At least, that's what I always thought it was about, anyway.
It's all about the music. For me, that's truly what I live for. Just music constantly. Always listening to, writing, or playing music. That's definitely me.