Sometimes I practice to Allan Holdsworth or John McLaughlin, but I don't just practice to jazz and jazz-fusion albums. I'll practice to TV theme music - one of my favorites is 'M*A*S*H.' I'll just play along with anything on the TV.
I've been doing a lot of music for films and television for quite a few years.
I think TV composers don't get enough credit. I really think it is one of the hardest jobs.
I did write a lot of TV themes - I wrote about 45 of them, and a couple of which are still reference and popular today, like 'Diff'rent Strokes' and 'Facts of Life.' But I was a limited musician.
I think music on television is just uniformly dreadful. It is mundane, it says nothing.
I love 'Modern Family.' And I love 'Glee' - the singing, the music - Jane Lynch just kills me.
I had written movie scores, television series, played with other people. Carl had done the same with Asia, with other bands, everything. We weren't about to entrust Greg automatically with a production credit.
There's no real music on television unless it's music television, and then it's expensive videos, which people like me can't do.
I was obsessed with 'The Twilight Zone' as a kid, and one of those things I didn't realize until I was in college was that I had been listening to Bernard Herrmann all my life.
Most television, the music is very much the same from show to show.
I grew up on Michael Jackson, Pat Benetar, and Van Halen - all the things coming out of the television.
I directed an early episode of 'Supernatural' the first season called 'Skin.'
I've lost so many gigs composing commercial or television music because I can't repress my inclination to work against conventions.
