I was raised on piano and saxophone and jazz music for ten or twelve years. Before I even picked up a bass. My whole family has always pushed the arts, you know? My brother is a doctor of music and my cousin is an opera singer over in Austria. Arts were always a big thing in our family.

My mom was a sub teacher her whole life. My aunt was a teacher her whole life. So that wasn't hard to do. Performing in front of people started when I was a child. My mom ran a theatre. So we were around it. Getting up in front of people has never been an issue. So I think once you get over that part of it, I'm happy to teach anybody anything.

There's always going to be haters. And the more hate you get, the better you are doing.

If you are making smart decisions and doing the right things in the correct order and dedicating yourself to something, the success is inevitable.

You won't walk into a store and steal food. But people think it's ok to steal music.

The reality is people are going to steal the record instead of buying it. It's kind of a cancer in the industry where people will just use a streaming service and then won't buy the record.

A lot of bands are going out and playing for nothing. A lot of bands will go out and get paid, but the gas tank will eat up their paycheck. When they manage to sell a t-shirt or two, there is a little bit of leftover money there so that they don't have to have McDonalds that day. They can actually eat something decent with possibly a bit of cash leftover. It's a huge part of the business now.