I have ambitions to do a Broadway record one of these days and get in the studio with like, a real orchestra. I'm a big musical theatre geek.
When I was a kid, I wanted desperately to be a jazz musician. I would practice the trumpet for hours, but when I got braces, that messed up my ability to play, so all of a sudden I had all this free time.
I've never had a musical career. So I think it's been unaffected. I play the accordion. In terms of thinking of it as a musical career, I think it's sort of like calling yourself an astronaut because you have a shiny suit.
Sometimes it feels like I've been in the business forever, but then other times, it feels like kind of a flash. Growing up, all I wanted to do was sing. All I wanted to do was get on a bus and ride around the country and sing for people and be a household name.
To be honest, and this comes out of left field, but I would love to do something with Jay-Z or Eminem. I have no limitations when it comes to the stuff I want to do musically. So to be able to do something like that I think would be really, really cool.
I'm thankful that I proved myself in music which is my first love, my first passion before I got involved in this media. I am hoping to bring it back to the music now.
When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal.
I wanted to be a guitar player and musician so badly, and I prayed to get this the very few times I went to church, and I feel like I got my prayer answered.
We always talked [with Andrew Ridgeley] about when it would happen - we always knew that I would go on to have a solo career.
I don't have any dreams or aspirations or goals I want to meet music-wise, so there's nothing to keep me from being level-headed.
I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than most western countries.
When I perform as a solo, I think a lot about what I always wanted to do but have not done yet.
But when I was a teenager, the idea of spending the rest of my life in a factory was real depressing. So the idea that I could become a musician opened up some possibilities I didn't see otherwise.
I would love to work with Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, B.B. King. I'd love to do something with Arctic Monkeys, Miles Kane, and The Last Shadow Puppets. If I got a call from Juliette Lewis or PJ Harvey, or Chrissie Hynde, that'd be a thrill.
I'm from the suburbs, really, so I actually didn't go to Montreal until I was, like, 19. I wasn't allowed to go to the city at night or really be in the scene with other producers. It was hard for my parents to understand what I was trying to do as an artist, but it didn't stop me. They eventually saw that it wasn't a joke.
All men in their 40s want to be in rock bands, and I reserve the right to be in a pub band at some point.
I don't remember ever not wanting to be a country singer. Even as a little kid, that was my dream.
I grew up in Barranquila, Colombia, and I spent most of my childhood dreaming about becoming a singer.
When I was 15, if anything, I thought I was going to be a Delta bluesman, which is so ridiculous.
I really didn't intend to be a musician when I left Japan.
I knew when I was a kid that I had a Broadway voice. I wanted to be a rocker, because I grew up in that era of transistor radios at the beach.
One of the big things that broke the band up for me, which I've become much clearer on over the years, was that I had no desire to be famous.
I've been dreaming of this moment since I was a kid growing up in Tennessee: that one day, I'd have the chance to come here to Madison Square Garden and be the warm-up act for Elvis.
There were a couple of years when I wanted to be a football player, but I really always wanted to be a singer.
I went straight out of high school, and when I was 17, all I wanted to do was play guitar.
