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I always wanted to be a full-time musician. Every television job I had was a means to buy a grand piano, or to put in a recording studio, or something like that.

In my mid 30's, after a decade or so of giving full time to the music thing and finding myself with about $10 in the bank and no assets other than my musical equipment, I realized I needed to get serious about making a living.

I was working at a non-profit for five years. But I could always create music after work. All throughout those years, I was writing songs and recording music and performing around town.

Before breaking into music, I had various jobs: forklift driver, driving a courier. But I was forced into working rather than doing it off my own bat because that was my dad's way: you got a job and paid your way.

When I graduated college, I had a fairly successful weekly club gig and was buying more studio equipment and writing my own music. I realized I didn't want to work.

Playing in my early bands, working as a studio musician, producing and going to art school was, in retrospect, my apprenticeship. I was learning and creating a solid foundation of ideas, but I wasn't really playing music.

Well, I actually first got into music as a small child, and as I became a teen, I sought out making money from music, weather that was singing lounge gigs, backup in studios, or weddings.

I've been working since I was a child. I worked cutting lawns, delivering newspapers; I was a telephone salesperson; I was a guitar repairman.

The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too - eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway - I was a sandwich artist - and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.

I never had a real job either. I sort of fell out of school and ended up playing guitar.