My parents were real classic rock freaks, so I heard a lot of Zeppelin, Stones, Hendrix stuff. Thankfully, they were also into lots of old soul, too, so we listened to Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire and War. I was so isolated where I grew up (a small town in Pennsylvania) that there was literally no culture.

I wanted to make some music with deeper meaning mixed with the fun and cool stuff I've been doing for so long.

I'm not sure what kept me from the mainstream. I thought it was because I was too hard to pin down genre-wise.

I am not one of those writers that it just flows out of effortlessly. I have to sit and write and rewrite and sometimes it's really challenging to get anything good out of myself.

We are all so self-obsessed, not really helping others as we should, spreading the love so to speak.

Usually I will hear a sample, think of a theme and then it will take me a couple of days to write down some lyrics. Then I will decide that I hate those lyrics and rewrite. Then I will change all the music around. Then I will rewrite all the lyrics again. I am a bit of a perfectionist although you would never know it because all my songs are like chopped up and @#$%& up, but you see that's on purpose.

I don't like being preachy. I think using fun and humor is an excellent way to make people think.