I didn't have an exhibition anywhere until I was 30. My first exhibition was at 30, and then for my first show in America, I'm 50. It's kind of all right: I'm just a slow burner.
After school let out around 2:30, I'd go straight to the gym to be the first person there, even though it didn't open until about 4:30. I was the littlest one and I was good, so they took me serious.
I got my first set of drums when I was around 3. I went from band to marching band to Latin jazz band - it's like riding a bike.
I feel like with the first 'Insidious' film we had a massive cache of stories and scares that we'd built up over the years. It was like a band, you know they say a band has forever to write their first album because no one cares.
When [my friend] had her kid, she was like, "9:30?! I'm not living in Barcelona. I need dinner at 6." I never got that until now. Four years ago, when I met her, I thought that was extreme. I was like, "I love Barcelona!" Now, I'm so mad when someone suggests an 8 pm reservation because that means we won't eat until 8:30 or 9 pm. Forget it!
I feel like my timeline has moved so many times in my brain. I used to be like, 'Maybe like 30' because that's when my older sister had her first kid. Now that I'm 30, I'm like, 'I don't want to have a baby in a long time!'
It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.
I like breakfast sandwiches, and the Krystal Sunriser might be the best breakfast sandwich on Earth. It has a really soft bun and sausage, eggs, and cheese on it. It's great if you're out until 5 or 6 in the morning and you happen to catch the 5:30 first shift. That's what I used to do when I played clubs; I would almost stay out until they opened.
The difference when you have kids comes up when someone wants to meet you out after 9:30 at night. You consider that giant sacrifice. You're like, "Do I do this? Do I stay out until 10:30 and be angry, all of tomorrow?
The most significant bands I played in when I first got to New York were Bobby Watson's band, Roy Hargrove's first band, Benny Golson's band, Benny Green's trio, and probably the most significant out of all of those, for me personally, was playing in Freddie Hubbard's band.
There's always a Van der Graaf audience that wants to hear the band's sound. And totally fair enough. Why not? It's a band. You like the band, you like the band.
When I broke 20, I said to myself, 'I will give concerts until I'm approximately 30.' And I made it a year and a half late, but, nevertheless, that's what I did. When I broke 30, I said, 'I think I should be recording until I'm about 50.'
I'm a morning person because I learned to write my novels while still practicing law. I would get to the office at 6:30 a.m. and write until other people arrived, around 9. Now I still do that. I start at 6:30 or 7, and I'll write until 11, then take an hour off, then work until about 2 p.m. By then my brain has had enough.
I missed so much of the Swinging Sixties by working. From 1961 to 1969, I got up at 4.30 A.M., a car came for me at 5.30 A.M., and I was taken to our studio at Teddington or Elstree, and we filmed until I got home at 9.30 P.M., five days a week.
I consider us to be one of the first Internet-based bands, especially because we basically started our entire band via the Internet. Before MySpace Music even existed, we had a band MySpace page. We were one of the first fifty bands on PureVolume(.com), and we really built everything from the Internet. That's how we started talking to record labels, that's how we booked our first tours. Without the Internet social networking, like Twitter, we definitely wouldn't be where we are today. It is a huge part of the band.
Anything was better than going to work. All those early tours before we made any money were more like vacations. I don't think it was until 2001 that we pulled our heads out of the sand and were like, "What are we doing?" I don't think Chris realized he was in a band until 2001. He all of a sudden woke up one day and realized he was in a band. He thought he was just recording my solo project. Three albums later, we're in Baltimore trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.