As soon as I saw myself beginning to be way too comfortable on a film set or TV set, and not stimulated by it the way that I had been that had brought me to want to be there professionally and creatively, was the moment that I started getting really, really sad. I decided, "Okay, I just want to actually be here, how can I make this be interesting for me?"

There's something really natural to me about being what they call in the business a "hyphenate." Being a musician-actor or writer-musician-actor.

The classical music scene was completely unfamiliar to me. A lot of people think of older generations and stuffiness. But it's not. You listen to the Overture of 1812, and you can hear a rock n' roll catharsis.

You perform the thing that you made, that's inside of you, and to subject that to any kind of scrutiny is terrifying. It's still terrifying to me.

I guess part of my ambivalence about pursuing music as well as acting is that acting is already one of the most difficult careers to create for yourself, I must be insane to embark on creating two careers in two of the most difficult fields. But I have really different ambitions with music; I just want to stay in love with music. I want it to continue to be a means of expression for me that feels like it's mine, and something that feels community-based.

If you're not an actor, or if you're any other kind of artist, there's this sense that, "I must express this thing." Why make a painting if you don't feel like you have to for something inside of yourself? Why make a song if you don't feel like you have to because there's something that you need to get out? And when you're an actor and you're not performing text that you've written, I think there's this bizarre disconnect with the must-ness of it.

I had no kind of work ethic and I always felt that music - especially rock 'n' roll - was a more for boys.