After high school, I moved to the U.S. and studied music in Boston, at the Berklee College of Music.
I lived in the States from 1996 till 2000. I attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1997. But I wasn't the most hard-working student. I rarely went to school. At that time, I seriously doubted that you could learn creativity in school. Music isn't something you can just learn from other people. Sometimes I regret missing classes.
Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.
I started piano when I was four. My mom taught me. And then I went to Manhattan School of Music during high school, like every Saturday. And then I went to Berklee for college, in Boston.
Out of Berklee Dream Theater was born and we've been together ever since. I didn't have to taste that feeling of defeat.
I was pretty lucky to get into Berklee at all. I never really had any theory or music-reading capabilities; I was completely by ear.
Boston was incredible. I had some of the best experiences of my life there at Berklee because I met a bunch of other people who were at the exact same stage in life and interest as me. There were American and international students all wrapped up in the Berklee environment, where you basically did nothing but music 24/7.
I didn't try out for bands when I was younger. I got into guitars intensely a couple of years into playing so much by the time I was graduating high school I was accepted into Berklee College of Music.
