God would have to beam into me what I was doing and what the album actually sounded like because usually when I start a project like that, I already know what the album sounds like before I start it.
Good records - from my point of view, where I grew up which was Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull... bands that were pushing the envelope a little - musically and in production.
I play piano and guitar. Acoustic guitar. I tried studying classical guitar when I was 16 but it got really hard. I could never play a lead to save my life.
I was really into Black Sabbath, but heavy guitars can really be very limiting, it's a great frequency and it's great fun to listen to but on the other hand, musically you can do a lot more without it.
I'm not financially insecure anymore either so I don't have to sit there and get on the latest Poison tour just to make money, which is what a lot of them are doing.
It's a little bit more like I want to give this to the people that are really into it first - I don't have a lot of desire to be like Bon Jovi or something like that, I really want to concentrate on the music.
It's like, on my solo stuff, every single person who buys the record, gets it. On the other stuff, the masses... when you have a hit on the radio, not everyone's going to get it. They are going to buy it for the hit.
Rock stardom and all that stuff like that was never like my main M.O., my main M.O. is musical growth, and if I become a rock star in the process, great!
The main thing is that I've been studying composition for the last four years. I'd say it's the life experience combined with the lessons that enabled me to go much further.
The songs were really complicated. I used to meet people in bar bands who were trying to play our songs and they were really struggling with it. Technically it was really difficult stuff.
