Since high school, I was in this band. And you know, it's one thing when you're in a band in high school, but then to have it last for so long - that's who I am and what I did forever.
So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon.
Both my brothers played football. My mother had season tickets as a school board member. I was in the band, my sister was in the band. The thing was, the unifying civic activity was obsession over high school football.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
I played soccer, and I played in a band, and sometimes I was able to do a movie. And my school would cooperate. It was a very easy way to roll into what later became my profession. It's more innocent. When you're a child actor in the U.S., it's a different thing I think.
You know, in the 1970's, when I was in high school, I belonged to a band called the Happy Funk Band. Until an unfortunate typo caused us to be expelled from school.
We've been through the experience of being in high school and starting a band. Then we were also a garage band, while we were going to college, trying to make ends meet.
When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.
It's also so cool to be able to develop the talent to be able to jump and control the motorcycle which is a very fun thing to do but it's hard to manage the two. It's so easy to get hurt, and that's the last thing I want to do.
My band got signed in high school when I was 16, and we all dropped out of high school and went on tour. Then I quit the band because I was the manager, and I was doing everything, so I went solo.
When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.
Most of the time I was in grammar school through high school, I was in some kind of rock n' roll band. I would say that at least 80 percent of my energy was involved with whatever band I was involved in.
When I went to college, it was so easy. And I worked two jobs while I was in school all the way through; I put myself through school. But working and studying was easy for me because I had worked so hard in high school, studying all the time. Taking only three classes and then working was an easy life in comparison.
There's nothing sadder than being in a tribute band - especially a tribute band for your own thing you did originally.
You are always kind of suspicious that there's a better life out there for you no matter what it is - and obviously being in a band for me was always what I wanted to do, it's the only thing that I can do, it's the only thing that gets me up in the morning, but you can't help but wonder what else you'd be doing if you weren't in the band.
Composing is just another exciting thing. It's as exciting as being in a band. It's kind of like joining a new band for three months.