"I became obsessed with the piano. I took lessons, listened to great players for inspiration. Billy Joel was a big influence on me, as a player and writer." I had to find creative ways to practice, sometimes skipping class to play piano in the music department. "Those pianos were much better than mine. I had saved money from my first job to buy a piano, but it was so old and in such bad shape it couldn't be tuned and some of keys didn't work."