Ive got Arabic music in my blood.

I studied music for my first two years in college. When I went to UC Berkeley, I failed the admission requirements to get into the music school there, so I studied communications and public policy, which actually were a greater engine for my career than a musical education would have been. If I had gotten into the music department at Berkeley, I'd probably be a timpanist in an orchestra right now.

Ive got Arabic music in my blood.

I'd rather duplicate it myself. Another of our favourite techniques.

Don't believe everything you see on VH1.

That whole thing of replicating what others do is a siren call. The sirens lure you to the rocks of unoriginality.

In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event.