Music was my first love, and at Marlborough we put bands together and sang the pop songs of the day. Although I couldn't read or write music - I still can't - I taught myself to play the guitar and piano by listening to songs and working out the chords.
I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.
In most of my films I write the music into the script. I'm listening to songs and lyrics that empower the themes of the film. There's a lot of Indigenous music that has not been heard widely and I love the idea of giving that music to the rest of the world.
My producer, Michael Knox, he's kind of my eyes and ears on Music Row. While I'm out on the road, he's looking for songs, and then he and I will get together and go over songs.
I don't listen to a ton of music other than putting my show together, just because my lifestyle isn't too conducive to listening to music all the time. I like to watch basketball, and I would rather not listen to music while I'm doing that.
I'm listening to 2Pac the whole time. While I'm getting treatment, while I'm stretching, I'm listening to music.
I really enjoy listening to Japanese pop aka J-Pop and I also like listening to anime songs as well. Both of these types of music are unique to Japanese culture and listening to these types of music gets me going.
I think I definitely learned how to structure songs, just from listening to a lot of 1960s, 1970s pop music, although I'm sure my mother's watchful eye had a lot to do with it.
I grew up listening to a lot of emo music, a lot of rock music, a lot of rap music, a lot of trap music, funk, everything.
The only music I was listening to for ages was old soul. So I wasn't listening to a lot of new music - especially indie music.
My songs are all about celebrating poignant music. While some of them focus on fun and revelry, they are fortunately backed by powerful lyrics. Put together, the lyrics, tune and my voice strive to take the songs to the next level.
A lot of people listening to music now don't listen to the songs or lyrics at all. They just go, "Good tones..." and that's it.
That's where the Black Keys and Jack White have succeeded and I've failed: They've actually convinced college kids that they're listening to hip music - but it's just blues twisted a new way - while I'm playing for the college kid's parents.
I grew up listening to topical music - songs that were about things. So when I write songs, a lot of the time, they're about the things weighing on my heart that I want people to think about.
I grew up listening to a lot of Malaysian pop music, which is kind of like a mixture of traditional and pop... I was also listening to a lot of English music as well.
The problem with listening to music today is that there's so much of it everywhere. We've got used to hearing music without actually listening to it.