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The Silverlake Conservatory is a nonprofit music school in Los Angeles where we teach music, mostly to kids, but to people of all ages - people who are old, people with beards, all kinds of people.

The quality of instruction is very high at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. It's not about being a rock star. It's about the fundamentals of music, theory and technique on a particular instrument, and playing in an ensemble or private setting.

You cannot help but notice that schools that take music seriously tend to be more academically successful.

I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory.

I'm not striving for fame, that's for sure. I don't particularly like the idea of celebrity. I would like to be successful with my music, so I realise that there's a balance to be made there.

I was in this public high school in Princeton, and it had this topnotch jazz program - if you were a musician of any kind of caliber, your holy grail was to be in that orchestra. It was that claim to fame of the school, of the town, other than the university. But it was better than the university band.

I went to a regular school, not one of those fame academy things.

I joined the after-school club, School of Comedy, which progressed wildly, and in quite a Hollywood way. It sounds like 'School of Rock', right up to trying to raise money to pay for a venue in Edinburgh.

I'm hardly Hollywood material - they're interested in youth and perfection and I lay no claims to either. It's not a place that's particularly interested in talent.

I'm not trying to be a celebrity, Justin Timberlake kinda guy.