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Both my grandfathers and my mother's brother were musicians.

My parents were on the Grand Ole Opry. They traveled all over the country singing hillbilly music. That's what they called it back then. They were friends with Roy Acuff and the Delmore Brothers and the Carter Family. And all of my brothers and sisters who were older than me started on the show, after they were big enough to hold a guitar and sing.

My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in.

My mother and dad loved music, were very much into music.

My father was very interested in music, and when he and his brothers were young, they had a singing group that used to open for Sam Cooke. There was always music in our house, but there wasn't much art around.

Prior to that, I had associated this music with older people, like my father.

As a kid, my parents had the typical stuff going on in the home, like Bee Gees, The Carpenters. Then I got exposed to what my brothers were listening to: a lot of classic rock, Led Zeppelin. It was around the mid-'80s when the whole Electro-Techno-Pop-House music thing started happening in Chicago.

My dad played music so I was around it at a really young age.

My family wasn't in the music business, but they loved music.