A lot of my family is from Texas, stuff like that, so I was always in Texas, and when you grow up in Texas, around Texas, you want to go to the biggest Texas school, and UT was that.
I don't think I ever had a morning where I woke up and said I'm going to be a professional poet. I know I've always loved poetry, I've always loved writing poetry and I've always loved sharing poetry. I've also always known that I wanted that to somehow be a very large part of my life and I'm very fortunate that it's such a large part of my life.
The Texas thing is such a big deal because whenever I see Texas in a TV show, they always show slow-moving cattle and cowboys with the hats. I wanted to show that Texas isn't a stereotype.
I grew up in Plano, Texas.
Texas history is a varied, tempestuous, and vast as the state itself. Texas yesterday is unbelievable, but no more incredible than Texas today. Today's Texas is exhilarating, exasperating, violent, charming, horrible, delightful, alive.
Texas people are really strong in their roots. I started writing and playing guitar at 17. I've always loved music, and my dad is a singer-songwriter.
My father loved music. He loved Motown and R&B, and my mother loved Journey and Fleetwood Mac, so they were always listening to it and playing it.
I owe my discovery of the Hot Club of Cowtown to Kinky Friedman, leader of the Texas Jewboys. When I saw that Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were headlining the 2003 Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival, I thought it my duty to check out the band that had inspired the Texas Jewboys.
I've always loved horror, I've always loved collecting, I've always loved weird and macabre things, and I've always loved conventions. So what could be better than having your own Fear FestEviL where all those great and crazy things can be enjoyed by like-minded people under one pretty cool roof? Nothing!
When I started playing music it was around Austin and the Hill Country area in Texas and there were always campfires and picking circles and I loved being a part of that.
Actually caffeine is too hard on my system. I'm a delicate boy from Plano, Texas.
I always loved singing and writing poetry. I always loved music, and I've loved writing my whole life. When I put them together, it was probably in my early 20s where I put words to music for the first time.
I always loved singing and writing poetry. I always loved music, and I’ve loved writing my whole life. When I put them together it was probably in my early 20s, where I put words to music for the first time.
To give you an idea about how old I'm getting, we had some family living in Texas for a while, and we went to the Texas museum at the University of Texas in Austin, and they had this whole Texas Instruments section, and my Speak & Spell was an exhibit in the museum.
Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all else, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.
I was always proud about being from Texas and, you know, maybe that was part of fearlessness. I love the fact that Texas is so big, but you don't feel small because of that.