As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.

I got recognition because of film music, but people start recognizing me as an artiste more because of singles.

I start with the music before I start writing the movie. It's such an important part for me, emotionally, to set up the tone for the movie.

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

My favorite artist was probably Jay-Z. He's the one who inspired me to start writing music. He's a wordsmith. He's very clever. He uses a lot of similes and metaphors. He's a beast of a rapper.

The music kind of possesses me when I sing. So whenever I start to sing on a show - I mean, first, I'm nervous, and then when I get into it, it's just like I feel like I'm the person who sang the song first.

A lot of musicians talk about how they were into music from the start; they always wanted to be musicians. It wasn't like that for me. I didn't think of it as a job or a career - it was just something that was constant.

In the 1950s in the United States, few music lovers were listening to chamber music. Daddy played Bach and Haydn on our phonograph for me. Not only did I become familiar with the form; he discussed the concerti. My own head start. My own Head Start.

If it wasn't for Kenny Rogers, I don't think I would be in country music. He was that guy when I was a kid - his music and 'Hee Haw' made me perk my ears up and made me say, 'What is this? I want to hear more of that.' He was that catalyst for me to start this whole run in country music.

Yes, I started piano and classical singing, I wanted to study jazz, but I tried to go to the Polish University of Jazz, but they didn't want me. In Krakow, I wanted to conduct, they didn't want me. And I start to think, 'I have to do something.' In Krakow there was drama and music. I started to study.

Other music that 'Ride The Lightning' led me to discover was to start really kind of sinking my teeth into some of the thrash of the era that I literally had no exposure to - whether it was Slayer, whether it was Testament, whether it was Megadeth. It was the opening of a doorway, for me, to a whole new palette of music.

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