I stepped back from being out front to playing bass. So we started switching: I'd play bass on one song, we'd switch on the next song; I'd play piano... we'd play mandolin. ↗
I didn't have bands that I was playing with growing up, so I learned to try to adapt and play these songs that were guitar songs on the piano, and sing them. ↗
Just with the basic one guitar, one piano and one vocal and an audience, I think that the intimacy comes through more. People feel much more connected to the song because there's nothing in the way, and I actually enjoy doing that. ↗
I heard a young black pianist. He was a teenager, I was eight years old, and he was playing boogie-woogie, and he just knocked me out. He thought he was alone in the old barn on the beat-up upright piano, but I was hiding in the corner so he wouldn't see me. ↗
He helped make Living Things even more crazy than I wanted it to be. He added old-fashioned piano and classical folk music - that weird otherworldly vibe - all these elements got onto the record. ↗
I always wanted to be a full-time musician. Every television job I had was a means to buy a grand piano, or to put in a recording studio, or something like that. ↗