Nate Ruess Quotes

No one in my family is in entertainment. They thought acting was a fun hobby, and when I got a degree, I'd settle down.

If I'd had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

My brother was older, very bright. He went to university. I wasn't academically bright - maybe at first, when I was little, but it was lost. I started doing a drama workshop and got really into it, then I did a BTec in performing arts and started to work.

Music was something I chose that I came to as a kid, and acting was something that was suggested to me.

I just knew what I wanted to be since the third grade. And I always did well in school. I was the type to get good grades; I never really got below Cs or nothing like that. I always kept it A-B. But there's no school for rap.

My father was a banker, but he was an independent spirit. He was a very good pianist and very much into music.

At the age of eight, I auditioned for 'The Sound of Music' and made it through to the third round, where we all stood in a row like the Von Trapp family and had to sing.

My mother was a very good violinist; my father was a musicologist and spent most of his life in academia.

Finally, I was no longer a student and was making music for myself.

I really wanted to be a doctor, until my freshman year of college when I realized that while I was good at chemistry and biology, I really wasn't feeling challenged by it.

I started making music for fun, but I had two parents who were very much in the business. I didn't run around trying to get the spotlight. I was very shy. I never sang in front of people 'til I was about 17 years old.

I started singing in church with my sister Maria when I was four, and I've been pretty much singing ever since. There's never been anything else for me to do.

The artistic side of our family was very important because one person encourages the other. It was a vey enlightening place to be as a kid because of all the music and dancing, and my dad played banjo; my sisters played piano and sang.

My father was a classical singer of baroque music, and my older sister was in musical theatre, and I thought about doing the same thing but then realised straight acting was for me.

I didn't really know I wanted to act when I was a child. I have a lot of interests, and I really wanted to finish my education - go to college - and didn't really want to have a career as an adolescent.

I was always going to be a dancer - I drifted into acting.

Music is more of a hobby to me than my hobbies, if that makes sense. I love music; my dad and brother were very musical, and music just happens to be one of my hobbies that became my vocation.

I loved playing the guitar and I knew I was pretty good at it, so that's what I wanted to do with my life.

Playing music has always felt very natural. You know, you do try to do other things, and you do learn lessons that way, but, eventually - well... if your dad is a plumber, you become a plumber. It's the family business, and I felt like I was taking over the family business.

My students frequently ask what their next project should be. My advice: immerse yourself in the music you love and you will find what you want to do; you will discover your next project.

I wanted to be a vet, a nurse, a chef - I mean, anything but the music industry. But once I hit high school, the bug really bit me. You can't deny where you come from and what's in your genes, and music definitely was. I haven't looked back since.

In the eighth grade I found I had a voice for opera, so I followed that path a little, but my impulse has always been an actor. I have always liked cinema, and let's face it, opera singers are just bad actors! I didn't want to translate myself in that direction.

I took the whole college prep trajectory, and then in my senior year of high school, I decided that performing was something that I had always done as a kid, and I loved it... I said, 'This makes people happy when I do this, I feel good, I get to pretend and explore other areas and learn so much'.

Music was always part of my life - my mother says I came out singing. I wanted to be Gene Kelly - or Judy Garland.

I'm very driven, and I always have been. So I'd like to release a successful album, continue in musical theatre, and be more involved in business.