If it's something that I just can't get anywhere with, even if I think this could be a hit, I just drop it and it doesn't get developed.

I had been composing just for myself, and people would say I played so orchestrally, and wondered if I thought about having someone write a piece for me for an orchestra. And I thought, I don't want someone else to write that. You know I finally had made an overhead chart of my drums and what pitches the cymbals and toms were tuned to, and what have you. And I started to compose just with what I had for my solo drumming.

You stick your nose in the dirt until you find something that smells good.

I think by the time I finished college I was calling myself a professional because I was, you know. I was making a living playing music.

I'm happy doing what I do. That's ok. Some guy could appear tomorrow and do it much better than me, and so be it, but right now I'm just happy to be who I am doing what I do.

Sometimes I feel like a one man crusade against the devaluation of music in America and culture in the arts.

Some great experiences I've had and little by little I've come to the realization that everything Frank Zappa told me was the truth, whether I wanted to believe it or not. You know, I was young and naive or in denial. But he really was a special, special human being.