I think somewhere around high school, your brain starts to gel, to harden. Before that, there’s this time where anything is possible and the more things that you artistically and educationally have in your repertoire, the more you become a child of larger possibilities.

To me I think artists in general make a statement - and for the rest of their lives - every album, every book - are variations on a theme.

Right now I just finished writing the music for a Rugrats feature film and the third week of September I go to London, and the Orchestra is going to perform the score.

It's people who write music because they are obsessed that I like; because they have something to say and no other way to say it.

My major was Fine Arts and Education thinking I would become an Art Teacher. I couldn't visualize myself as an art teacher, thinking how it wouldn't work.

I really appreciate anyone trying to inject art into mainstream film.

With MTV in the '80s, you made your album but then you needed to use any money you made to create a video - instead of being able to use that money to pay for you and your band to live on while you wrote new songs. So MTV upped the ante of looking for one hit. Conceptual bands who didn't have a hit were going to lose.