My dad is my everything. He always had the craziest speeches for Kylie [Jenner] and me growing up, good words to live by.
Growing up, I was always enthralled by Ronnie Barker. He made my dad howl with laughter, which always intrigued me, and he had the rare gift of being as good a performer as he was a writer.
My dad worked all sorts of jobs when I was growing up and finally ended up as a surveyor; my mum delivers meals to old folk around where we live. We didn't have much money when I was growing up, but I had a very happy childhood.
It's a long story, my life, growing up with my dad, my mom when she died, everything. I had bad moments in my life, my dad going to prison, I had nothing, and that's where I got my motivation.
Growing up, you always want to hang with your dad - go fishing or whatever. But my dad was always working, so we never really had time for that. I think I kind of learned to accept it.
Growing up in Georgia, my dad was a farmer and we worked in agriculture, so we were always looking up at the sky, checking if rain was in the forecast. That always set the tone for the mood in my household, whether we had rain coming in or not - we knew the crops would be good and it was going to be a good week around the Bryan household.
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 did a number of local children's theater plays growing up, but in 5th grade, I had some good times on stage making people laugh as a troll in 'The Hobbit.' That solidified my dream to be on 'Saturday Night Live,' which was hugely influential for me growing up.
Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up.
It's not good to lose your dad at any time but at 13 years of age you are just going through puberty and growing up and that was a very crucial time and was a hard time to lose my dad and it had a big effect on me.
I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?
I knew from the time I was 6 or 7 that music was something I had to do. Growing up, my parents did everything they knew how to do to support me. My dad was always kinda my roadie; he drove me from gig to gig. But I got my own gigs. I was this 12-year-old kid, shuffling business cards, calling people, telling them I wanted to play.
I've always had gender confusion. I had two older brothers, and I've been predominantly male influenced. I really always looked up to my dad, really always looked up to my brothers... I had a lot of male friends growing up. It didn't help that in my town, where I lived, there were no female musicians.
Growing up in a trailer, you think everything you get is good. I always thought it was a gift from God, because some people are out here struggling and on the street. We had warmth. We had clothes. We had a roof over our head.
I've seen guys who had the craziest amount of talent growing up and let that hype and whatnot and the money go to their head.
Words are everything to me. Words can build you up and feel so good. On the flip side, words can absolutely demolish you.