I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.

Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music.

I've done all different kinds of genres - doo-wop, pop, funk, gospel, country, jazz, you name it.

I wanted to explore the connections between different kinds of music.

Usually I'm pretty myopic. It's hard for me to multi-task, so to speak. If I'm in a show and I'm creating a character, I'm just completely into that. It's really hard for me to do anything else like write music. I have to sort of shut down different sides of my head and just focus.