I grew up poor in crappy situations... various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thompson essays or reading the Beats. I was a huge fan of the Beat movement.

My grandmother is a huge Hawkeyes fan, so I, by proxy, have to be one. I'm more of a professional sports fan, and I've never been a huge college fan, but because of my grandmother, I've gotten into a lot of really good Hawkeye games. So, because I'm a good grandson, I'm a Hawkeye fan.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

I got into Dio when I was still quite young. I remember seeing the video for 'Rainbow In The Dark' on MTV. That was my first taste of Dio. It wasn't until years later that I realized he had this whole career with Rainbow and Black Sabbath and even going back to Elf. When I saw that video, it instantly became one of my favorite songs.

Music has been more a solitary, creative thing. The acting side of things and working in movies has helped me collaboratively with music in terms of helping me get ideas across to other people and making it more of a team efforts.

Paul is a very creative artist but I'm more that thorough, meticulous, disciplined nut.

I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.

Growing up in a suburban home, the world seems so massive to you. It seems like cities are so big and so far away, and there's so much in them. So your imagination runs wild, instead of when you are born in the middle of Manhattan, you'd know, like, that this is the biggest city.