You've got to bring your A-game when you're in the same household as a military guy.

I'd like to think that every job and every step I've taken progressed more and more toward the career that I've wanted to have.

When I was 7, we moved to New York because my dad's job was transferred.

I get nervous for any competition. I also get really competitive.

In 2012, I received a phone call from the family of Arsala Rahmani, the Afghan senator with whom I'd become friendly. That morning, a gunman had pulled up alongside Rahmani's vehicle, idling in a crowded intersection, and shot him point blank.

If I could, I would have my son on tour the whole time. But he has school, summer camp, and he has to see his mother.

My family couldn't be more supportive. They're worried and they're always in my business, and my mother does send me grad-school applications every now and again.

My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too - the late-'30s, early-'40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday - all that stuff was in my background.