If Beethoven and Bach hooked up with Mozart and made a band, they could be a distant runner up to The D.

My parents were very supportive of me and my artistic endeavours. My father and mother came to every school play I ever did.

I seem like a big bombastic outgoing dude, when it comes down to it with the ladies, when I was a single, free-wheeling dude, I was always very shy. It was difficult to form sentences with the girl of my dreams.

With the acting, it's somebody else's brainchild, and I'm just sort of helping flesh it out. There's a special satisfaction to being the brains behind the operation.

I really wanted people to pay attention to me and like me. And the class clown thing, you know? There's a weird desperation to the class clown when you really investigate it. Why are they trying to be the clown so much? They're filling some kind of hole.

The thing is, the kids always rebel against what the parents try to push on them so I'm going to pretend like I don't want my son to hear the rock. I'm going to listen to it only in my private chambers. He'll hear echoes of it and say: "What was that you were listening to papa?" And I'll say: "Nothing son, you're not ready."

There were times when I thought I got a bit more punishment than was coming to me, but I don't regret a minute of it now. Each of us must be tempered in some fire. Nobody had more to do with choosing the fire that tempered me than myself, and instead of finding fault with the fire I give thanks that I had the metal to take the temper and hold it.