I was in my first band
when I was 14.
I really feel sometimes it was like one of those
music or prison situations, you know?
Like a lot of times, music, people find music
because it's about finding your identity.
You keep searching around when you're younger
until you find something that kind of helps you
figure out who you are, what it is about you
that makes you special, you know?
Just like you go through different clothes fashions,
you listen to different music,
and you try out different friends,
you know what I mean?
And you keep figuring out who you are.
And so I was coming right off of the,
around 15, 16, I left home for a while.
Me and my mom didn't get along very well.
And it just seemed like the thing that I needed to do.
So it was kind of this self-imposed homelessness.
And I took off into the world and just really
met up with just the worst group of people.
I mean,
really good guys,
but man,
the worst group of people you could possibly meet up
with, you know?
And I was kind of getting in trouble and getting arrested.
And I remember I ran into these other guys,
and I was a freshman at the time in high school.
So I guess I was like 14, 15.
Ran into these guys who were seniors,
and I was a freshman.
And they played music, you know?
And I had just,
in high school,
I had tried to join a musical,
like this Guys and Dolls,
because there was this girl who was like one of those drama girls.
You know,
she was kind of gothy,
and I thought she was really sexy.
And so I wanted to be in this play
because she was trying out for this play.
So I went in,
and I did the play,
and I sucked at it because I wasn't a theater guy.
And so everybody before me,
I'd see them doing it.
They were doing the Can Do song,
and they were all singing,
all animated.
I've got the horse right here.
And they're smiling,
and I'm like,
oh,
man,
I didn't even think about that.
Am I supposed to do that?
And so they get to me,
and I was like,
I've got the horse right here.
And I was like, I hate this.
The chorus teacher who was running the
musical told me that he thought that my
voice had potential,
and that the next year I should join chorus class.
Because you understand,
I wasn't staying at home,
but I was still going to school
regularly.
I would stay in my friend's car,
and then when his parents would leave for work,
I would get up and take a shower at his place and then go to school.
And so I was still being pretty good.
I was good up until somewhere my sophomore year.
One of the bands that I was in,
which still had a couple of those guys that I had met earlier on,
were playing a gig in Vero Beach at a Sheraton.
And I thought,
well,
man,
that's rock stardom right there.
So I quit school.
I later came back and got my GED,
because I thought
I was going to join the Army.
So I later came back and got a diploma.
But I quit school, and I went and played
the Sheraton at Vero Beach.
And we played there like three days,
and we wrecked the joint.
And I wound up getting in trouble with this girl who
turned out to be the daughter of the owner of the hotel,
who
knew.
It was all like a bad 80s comedy,
like screwballs.
And so we lost the gig,
and I remember the woman pulling us
in into the office, and she would sit us down.
And she was going, you are not the stars.
Understand, you are not the stars.
And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry.
And we were.
Man, we were playing old time rock and roll,
and the Lady in Red, and 80s classics.
But we were having the best time in the world.
Like,
Hungry Like the Wolf was our biggest number.
But I knew that I was hooked.
And so when I first started writing music,
I felt like,
man,
that was it.
I found my connection to something special.
I figured out who I am.
Oh, I'm a songwriter.
Well, that works.
I like that.
One of my friends was a really great piano player.
He was the keyboard player that I met.
And his name was Kez Al-Attraqchi.
And he was headed off to Berkeley College of Music
as soon as he graduated high school.
So he would give me all of his books
on piano, and music theory, and chords,
and how notes relate to each other.
And so I would sit at night with this.
He would loan me one of his Kawais.
I would sit there late at night with my headphones
and just learn how to play those songs.
And then when I knew all the chords in that song,
I'd learn another song that had new chords.
And I'd learn all the chords in that song.
Little by little,
I would teach myself just enough to write.
But I was only writing bad versions of Lionel Richie songs.
Everything I was writing was from the outside in.
And so it was really just to pick up chicks and to be fun
at parties.
But nothing really intimate or personal,
I think,
until I
was like 18 or 19.
And I wrote 3 AM,
which is the first one that I ever really
connected with.