My grandparents on my mom's side played in a mandolin orchestra. So when I hear mandolins, I automatically think of them.

Our dad played us a lot of old country songs by The Carter Family and he would sing along to it. I loved listening to him sing.

I remember watching Looney Tunes cartoons and having the music stuck in my head.

I didn't know how write a song, (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, bridge, verse), etc., and I didn't know how to write lyrics, so that's when I thought, well, I don't have to write a song with all those verses and choruses or lyrics. I can just sing everything the way I want to. So I sang all the instruments with my voice and just went with it.

You have to be a poet to know how to write a song with lyrics.

I like things that start depressing and dark and end up romantic, and thats what I really loved about King Kong.

I got a new 4-track cassette recorder a year or so after high school. For a while I would just stare at it thinking, how am I going to do this if I don't play guitar or keyboards? How am I going to write and record a song if I don't know how to play any instruments? I mean, I played the violin, but I didn't know anything about how to work a 4-track.