“I would play … all these small places in New York where a lot of young musicians get their start.[I would do] whatever I could do to get people talking about my music. A couple of years into it, we could get, like, 300 or 400 people to show up at [New York music venue] S.O.B.’s, but at first we were happy to get, like, 50 or 60 or 70 people to show up.”

“But that whole grind is just part of how you get discovered, how you develop yourself as a performer. I think it makes everything I do now more worth it, because I put in all that time and all that effort. You will not make it in this business and succeed over a long period of time unless you work really hard. I had to learn as I went when I was grinding. And it does make you appreciate your success. It makes you realize that it’s really about the work. It’s really about making the best music you can make. It’s really about working hard. At the end of the day, there’s only a few major stars in the music business, and then there’s all these people that are aspiring to be that.”