I always knew I would sing. I just didn't know if I would be successful or not. But I sang at school, I sang at parties, I sang at church. Everyone always asked me to sing. I'd be playing football with my friends, and my parents would ask me to sing for their guests. I was never very happy about that because I wanted to play football.
When I'm singing, that's all me. That's from the bottom of my heart - it's everything I've worked for. When you're on stage, there are no guidelines. No one's telling me what to do!
The only passion that guides me is for the truth... I look at everything from this point of view.
I always pray when I write songs that my spirit guides, or whoever is with me, inspiring me, would let me speak the truth.
There have been many dreams which have been personal guides for me.
I believe God has a path for me. He's always had a path for me, and I've always been in the right place at the right time - not because of my efforts, but because of my preparation and because of the guides that I have, the mentors that I have, the spiritual walkers that I've had all my life.
I'm a Jew. I'm fascinated by our culture and our history, by what made us the people we are. It influences every breath I take. It informs and guides me. Without it, I'd just be a vacuum.
When I look at the people who are the guiding figures in modern dance, I think, 'This does not look to me like the way I want to spend my days.'
Fear, to me, is a guiding thing more than anything.
I went without health insurance until 'Roger & Me,' basically - from about age 20 till about age 35. With 'Roger & Me,' I joined the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild, and since then I've had excellent health care managed by the union.
MWA and The Author's Guild refused to accept me as a member.
I created 'The Guild' because nobody was offering me the roles I thought I could do best at in Hollywood.
St. Lucia represents, for me, where I found myself musically once I stopped trying to be cool, in some way, and stopped stopping these guilty pleasure influences I had from coming through.
It's rare for me to read any fiction. I almost only read nonfiction. I don't believe in guilty pleasures, I only believe in pleasures. People who call reading detective fiction or eating dessert a guilty pleasure make me want to puke.
Guilty pleasure implies that it's something that I feel guilty for watching... people tell me I should feel guilty for watching because I'm too old to watch it, but I don't give a damn: I love everything on Cartoon Network from 'Adventure Time' to 'The Adventures of Gumball', 'Teen Titans'... all those shows that are for my kids, I like those!
Probably dancing to Cassie's 'Me & U' - That's my guilty pleasure.
For me, it's always been a financial kind of scenario. I was actually the first one who signed the 'exclusive to Ring of Honor' contract. I was the first guy who ever signed one of those contracts. That was tough for me because I had no one to talk to. I had no examples to go on. I was the guinea pig.
My mother was an English teacher who decided to become a math teacher, and she used me as a guinea pig at home. My father had been a math teacher and then went to work at a steel mill because, frankly, he could make more money doing that.
The discovery that I soon made that the guinea pig was also susceptible to infection made it possible for me, from the third year on, to preserve the virus on this animal.
I'm an early riser. I work out really hard. I push myself; I get my job done, and at the end of the day, there's a Guinness waiting for me.
