Brooklyn, NY, USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mother forced me to take piano lessons when I was 7. I hated it! I told her that my teacher was evil. She had long skinny fingers and smoked cigarettes while sitting next to me on the bench. Eventually my mother conceded and I was able to quit. Only then did I really start to become interested in music \u2026 on my own. I eventually studied music composition at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. During my sophomore year, an article came out in my hometown newspaper that my former piano teacher had been arrested for plotting to kill her husband. True story!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During college (1990s) I formed an indie rock band called Schwa (and later called Fashion Central). We were offered a major record deal but turned it down. We were too scared, and not getting along well with each other. After college I got a job working at Hohner, where I tuned and repaired harmonicas. While there, my coworker, Joshua Camp, and I formed the band One Ring Zero. Originally the music was almost entirely instrumental and very much based around some of the stranger instruments that Hohner created. The band moved to New York in 2001, and began working with McSweeney\u2019s Publishing, often referred to as the \u201chouse band.\u201d With this we became very involved with the booming Brooklyn literary scene, and managed to convince many great writers to compose lyrics for us, which we then set to music. I also began doing a lot of writing on my own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While still recording and touring with One Ring Zero, I began to release solo albums, as well as books. Mostly kids music and books. I was also asked to compose music for a few films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point, I do a lot of film music, while continuing to perform for kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my kids’ music, my biggest influences are bands that I sort of feel are my contemporaries (though they\u2019re all much more famous than me, and perhaps a little older and wiser). They Might Be Giants, The Pixies, The Magnetic Fields, Grandaddy, The Mommyheads, sprinkled with some Camillie Saint-Saens and Prokofiev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my film music, it\u2019s Danny Elfman, Jon Brion, Carter Burwell, Michael Giacchino, and of course the great Bernard Herrmann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have an eight-year-old boy. My schedule is very simple: I get up early so that I can get him off to school. I then head to my studio which is just a block away, and dive in with whatever I\u2019m working on \u2026 typically three or four projects at once. Of course, I prioritise whichever one has the closest deadline. But on any given day I bounce between composing music for film, composing music for my own records, working on a new book, and of course hours upon hours of all the logistics that go in between: putting together setlists for shows, answering emails, promoting myself, paying band members, blah blah blah. And then it\u2019s time to pick my kid up from school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m so lucky to have a studio just down the street from my apartment and my child\u2019s school. It\u2019s like Mister Rogers neighbourhood here in Brooklyn, albeit very overpriced. My studio is a room all to myself, complete with a sofa for occasional naps. The room is on the same floor as several other artists, mostly film-makers, who I sometimes even get to collaborate with. In my studio is a digital setup, and a gazillion musical instruments. There\u2019s also a separate table\/workspace for art work or construction. Right now I\u2019m sculpting small figurines at that table for a stop-motion video for one of my songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n