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

From the time I started playing solo drums, doing clinics and stuff, you know I think one of the largest selling clinics I ever did was in Chicago.

My motives at a young age were, "I want to be rich and famous".

You have to study composition to understand that things can be done backwards and forwards and upside down, inverted, but it's mainly just an inner valid intuitive thing. Where do you want to go? Ok this is busy, or this needs some space, or this is too much space so now I want to put more notes in there or something. It's all about contrast. High, low. Fast, slow, thick or thin or what have you. And it's the same with improvisation.

The best thing is to find something you really love to do and enjoy that process for the rest of your life.

I think my music is great for film, but I don't have the opportunity, or goesche to go and pitch myself to Hollywood.

I really think kids should understand that music is like learning the alphabet. You put small letters together to make words, and then you use these words to create a story, but with music. And they really need to know how to mix and match those letters and how to come up with something that is really interesting, or speak in metaphors as poets do to show us something maybe we didn't think about.