My world was a community ballet school, a marching band, my two sisters and my girlfriends. I played saxophone in the band and was a bit nerdy.
I played the tuba in high school. I wanted to be a member of the marching band. I thought, what can I play that has the most effect? What can I play to get people to laugh?
You know, if I can survive marching band, I can survive anything.
I did the marching band all throughout junior high and high school. Music was one of my favorite things in school.
Being a writer is great, and being a parent is great, and I hate Marching Band.
In high school, I stole a six-foot submarine sandwich from a banquet room in front of several hundred people. I did it because I was in marching band, and we were promised food if we played, and they broke their promise. It was my first and only heist, motivated by justice and hunger.
I actually had a movie green lit at Disney the same week 'Burlesque' was green lit - a movie for Disney called 'Mash-Up', about a high school marching band.
Ours was a very progressive Protestant family, but my parents were God-loving rather than God-fearing. We went to church, and I still go with my mum and dad when I return home - it's a family thing. I played flute in my dad's marching band, but I had an integrated upbringing. We had a lot of Catholic friends.
There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.