I've been playing music for over 20 years now. I started playing when I was 14 years old. To everyone who has said I was an overnight success... where have you been the last 20 years?
I was 40 years old before I became an overnight success, and I'd been publishing for 20 years.
I'm a 50-year-old guy making music for over 20 years. I've been writing songs since I was 20, so it's really been 30 years, and it's always been personal, but I've always told stories.
I have been involved with 'Spring Awakening' for six years. I am 20 now - I just turned 20 in August - and I originally auditioned when I was 14 years old. I auditioned for Michael Mayer, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater.
[Robert Downey was being singled out for] selective prosecution. He's a sweet guy who never did harm to anyone except himself. He's been doing drugs for 20 years and functioning for 20 years, and in those 20 years there've been hundreds of people who've been getting high constantly and behaved very destructively and have not been arrested. Robert's real problem is he gets caught.
When I see myself at 14 years old I can put my hands on my head and think: 'How could I have done that?' but at that time it had sense for me. You do the same when you're 20. And now, when you look at people who are 20 years old you ask yourself: 'Was I like that? Was I really like that?'
It's so funny, this thing of 'overnight success.' I've been doing this for 20 years, but yes, sure, it happened overnight!
It hasn't been until the last couple years that I've started playing close to my age. But it's fun playing the younger roles because it takes you back to the teen years.
We started the band when I was about 19 or 20. At that age, it would have been kind of hard to imagine a lot of the stuff that I've written. We were playing garage rock. I wanted to dash out three chords and scream. But if you do that for 20 years, what's the point?
I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.
My overnight success was really 15 years in the making. I'd been writing songs since I was 6 and playing in bands and performing since I was 14.
I was blessed. I had a great childhood and great parents that loved music and family. I moved from England when I was almost 18 and been on my own ever since and have been trying to make a living in the music business for the past twelve years. A lot of people say I'm an overnight success, but it's an overnight success that's been twelve years in the making.
See that fella over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be a star. Now that fella over there, he's 20 years old, too. In 10 years he's got a chance to be 30.
I've been playing the viola since I was 6 years old, and then I decided to switch it up a bit, so I've been playing the violin since I was 11. I started playing the piano when I was 11, and I started playing the guitar when I was 10.
If you look internationally over the last 50 years there have been improvements in the third world, but in the last 20 years the reverse has happened, with debt crises and increased poverty.
I've been doing comedy for 20 years now. I started when I was 13 and I think for the first 10 years I was impersonating other people.
I tell young people all the time because they think I'm an overnight success I've been doing this for over 20 years! And that means inspiring and motivating people.