If I can get out of the way, if I can be pure enough, if I can be selfless enough, and if I can be generous and loving and caring enough to abandon what I have in my own preconceived silly notions of what I think I am - and become truly who in fact I am, which is really just another child of God - then the music can really use me. And therein lies my fulfillment. That's when the music starts to happen.

I'm never trying to preach to anybody with my music, but I'm aware of the universal nature of the human experience and I try to reach out and connect with people in that manner.

When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising.

I just want to keep exploring music and hopefully the orders will keep coming in and I'll be able to keep growing the interior and exterior sides of my life.

I practice all the scales. Everyone should know lots of scales. Actually, I feel there are only scales. What is a chord, if not the notes of a scale hooked together?

Everyone can lock into the rhythm on a tune. It's organic in nature. It connects the band as a whole and connects the band to the audience.

Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?