The hardest part was when I was in high school not having a job and always being broke. I had to get to auditions without a car. I either took the bus or walked.

It wasn't a secret that I was gay. I'd come out to my parents during my junior year of high school on the day that I also wrecked the family car.

It was all that stuff about taking your parents' car when you're 13 sneaking booze into rock shows and ditching school with your friends. I could relate to that as a former teenager rather than as a present parent.

Going to car racing school was phenomenal.

I've worked as a labourer driven taxis and school buses and been a car mechanic - whatever I could do just to get by. But it does mean that I know a little bit about a lot of things.

I was an economics major in college and every summer after school I would drive my car from California from Claremont men's college at the time to New York. And I worked on Wall Street.

I lived on the top of one hill and the school was at the top of another hill. Nobody ever went to school by car - we didn't have any cars during the war. So that to and from school was itself a training.

I like structure - like driving: go past the school on the street stay on the right side no hitting the car go in right you'll see a big church stop and take a left and you'll have it. By doing this I'm giving a structure of life a path of light and showing what happens between me and me which is something very beautiful.

When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always wanted to be a singer.

The year most of my high school friends and I got our driver's permits the coolest thing one could do was stand outside after school and twirl one's car keys like a lifeguard whistle. That jingling sound meant freedom and power.