A fine timepiece is part of dressing like a gentleman. When I first made a little money, I bought my first watch which was a Rolex Daytona. It was just one of those things that said I was successful.

Most of the stuff I learned to play, I learned in high school. I had a band in high school, a jazz-fusion thing, and I was the keyboard player. I was interested in how the instruments worked and the theory behind playing with them.

Being a musician, you want to be able to do the hardest stuff there is. People would think it's classical, but in classical, it's all on the page and the difficulty is keeping up with the music.

Everything I have now is so real, so vivid.

I was a nerd academically. But I was also an athlete and a musician. I never wanted to be shut out of any situation. I think it was that more than anything.

I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

I'm constantly being courted by labels and their backing. Obviously the market is there when you talk about the economics and the numbers, but it's hard to give up the freedom of being able to do whatever you want.