When you do a show five days a week and one night a week, the way I was doing, you use up so much music every day that pretty soon you find yourself hustling for material.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I do an hour-and-a-half show, if I don't improvise 20 minutes worth of new material each night, I feel I've let myself down.
I think you can see that in the show. Music was my touchstone. Music is still much more important to me.
I was on a series for a number of years, and I got very used to only doing a mini-play per week. When I first came back to the theater, and I was suddenly doing eight shows a week again for three or four months, I had to find a new reason to do it.
For many people, music is here to let them forget the daily chores of life.
Every day, you have to make three hours of music, just randomly improvising, and that's a great way to weed stuff out.
Every so often, you have to do a show that makes you walk to your car with your head down, wondering what you're doing with your life. It's good for you, as long as you're not feeling that way every night.
If you do the same thing every night, that's the death of music.
To the audience, it's like I'm changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show's almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.
Playing music is the best thing in the world. It makes show business almost bearable.
I feel my live shows are my music; everything blossoms from the live shows.