And when I met Cecil Taylor it was a complete transformation of musical identities. All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think songwriting was the biggest way that I found my identity.
I always had an appreciation for diverse musical styles.
Had I not become entangled with music, I would have become an author much earlier.
I think I was affected quite a bit by musical and creative influences that go all the way back to my childhood.
Being exposed to the diversity of music I was as a kid made me the actor I am today. As an actor, you have to adapt and do so many different things.
I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn't have the recognition that I have now.
I was an absolute idiot, wearing polo-necks, reading Kerouac, watching Woody Allen movies, and jazz fitted right into all of that. My interest in that whole world became very genuine, but perhaps started off a bit affected - a mixture of right and wrong reasons. I was always drawn to non-commercial music, perhaps pathologically so.
When I was writing my autobiography, these songs came up from time to time which were important to me, and I realized that what they really represented was, they'd come from this age of shared music.
Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.
My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.