It's much easier to work on other people's music and play in other people's bands as a guitar player instead of being the main songwriter and singer. That's a really big job to do that.

My first job in NYC was playing a gig in the early nineties at CBGBs.

So there was something of a learning curve with doing your own thing and people seeing you outside of the band. I mean, people have never really heard my voice before - or heard a whole record of mine before. So it was a completely new experience.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.

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.

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.

Yeah, I'm sure there are stereotypes of Asian people.