Biography

December 18, 1984 · Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Graduated from California Institute of the Arts.

Of course, you have to make distinctions between music when you're analyzing it as a musicologist or journalist. But I avoid it, kind of like you you avoid things you don't want to think about. I grew up listening to pop music, but then, what I did, I went to school and studied classical music and wrote music in that style. So it really is not a lie when I say that what I'm doing comes out of that, and that it's not like I'm trying to fuse any two art forms.

I hate rehearsals. I have total imposter syndrome. My band are such amazing musicians in their own right, though. So there's quite a bit of improvisation.

I don't write music based on what I think people want. I just don't think people can predict what people want, especially these days, because kids listen to everything. People are super sophisticated. So I don't even know what people want so that's not an issue for me.

Art is always a process of translation, of sharing from people to people, from century to century. I don't know what the purpose of art is, but there's some comfort that it still exists.

One thing I've noticed is that I'm very sensitive and can't handle a lot of communication all the time. It really takes a toll on my mental state. That's one of the things about music that I love-it's not communication at all. Even when there's lyrics, they're not functioning like normal words. The beauty of it is that those words become music.