Around 20. I'd been trying to transition from the streets to the music business, but I would make demos and then quit for six months. And I started to realize that I couldn't be successful until I let the street life go.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.
My overnight success was really 15 years in the making. I'd been writing songs since I was 6 and playing in bands and performing since I was 14.
When I started performing in public, I was probably around 10 or 11.
In between 15 and 20 - probably at around 17 - my interests switched from hard rock to punk rock. And then by 20 they were circling out of punk rock back into Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the stuff that I didn't get to when I was younger.
I started making music professionally when I was 14.
When I was 13 or 14, I took seven months off from touring. I did a lot of weekend gigs in Louisiana. We have fairs and festivals every weekend. But I took seven months off. That's when I really started digging deep. I wrote a couple songs that year that I still play every now and then for people.
With my quick success, I didn't have time to learn the ropes of the music business. Because my first record was such a hit, I was terribly spoiled and I thought I couldn't do anything wrong. I was also desperate to make tons of money because of my responsibility to my daughter. And there was no longer any joy in making music.
I was a street performer for two years.
When I was 15 I became a full-time singer in a band. At 18 I made my first record.
I think it was 37 years that I did music.