As a kid, I carried around a Casio keyboard with me everywhere I went. I never had lessons, so I made up my own songs all day long. Later, my dad taught me how to play guitar in the style of Jimi Hendrix, although all I did after that was figure out how to play every song by The Cure.
After attending the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas, I studied classical guitar privately and at the State University of New York at Purchase under Benjamin Verdery and later Frederic Hand. A few years into the program, I met some people who used computers to compose and record music, and I immediately fell in love. And through composing music, I ended up where I started – playing with synthesizers and spending all day writing my own songs.