If you can fart in front of somebody, you know that they love you.
I'm a guy where my perfect pitch has been altered by the fact that I usually tune up to what's going on. When I was a kid, it was horrible! If two notes were playing right next to each other, and they were dissonant, it would drive me nuts. If it was something that sounded like it was in between notes, it'd make me cringe.
Driving around with my dad, growing up, he would play everything: Philip Bailey, Manhattan Transfer, Frank Zappa, Cream. I'd be like, 'Dad, cut this stuff off!' And he'd say, 'No, you're gonna listen to it.' I didn't understand why he liked it so much. In my mind, I would be thinking about the theme song to 'Sonic the Hedgehog.'
'Looney Tunes' was not a children's cartoon. I don't care what anybody says. It was very politically charged, very racial. And then they tried to soften it up for kids later. But it was for the adults.
My high school teacher, Reggie Andrews, was a huge factor in my learning my instrument. He didn't play bass, but it was the part where he gave me a knowledgeable perspective of what it was that I was doing.
Sometimes I practice to Allan Holdsworth or John McLaughlin, but I don't just practice to jazz and jazz-fusion albums. I'll practice to TV theme music - one of my favorites is 'M*A*S*H.' I'll just play along with anything on the TV.
My family is all musicians - my dad plays drums, my mom plays flute, my older brother plays drums, my little brother plays drums and piano. For some reason, I didn't get the memo, so I just play bass.
I feel like music itself is inspirational enough. Especially with the Internet. Not to sound like a shut-in.
My first reaction to playing at Coachella was like a kid who has no idea of the rules. I just wanted to go have a jam session with my friends. I didn't get that we couldn't just jump on one another's stages while they were performing!
I don't look at my instrument as having one specific role; I was raised to go as far as you can. But Raphael Saadiq hated my bass. He told me to throw it away. And playing in Snoop's band, there was a time when my bass was more annoying to everyone than helpful. They would get on my case: 'Can you make your bass sound like more of a bass?'
When I invite people over to my apartment, they usually don't like it because the music I play confuses the crap out of them - I'm making people listen to the 'Final Fantasy' soundtrack, and they're like, 'Why is this happening? Let's just leave and find somebody who wants us to have fun and not teach us about something.'
I'm not Beyonce or Trey Songz or anything, so every now and again, I feel a little like, 'Are they listening to me, or am I just sounding crazy singing to myself?' I feel like that sometimes.
I do enjoy a bit of the fantasy world that anime provides, but at the same time, I need the reality in it. I'm very much a stickler about the actual animation. I'm not into the cutesy, stereotypical animation with big eyes and a small chin. That annoys the hell out of me.
I'm kind of a simple guy. The best way you can describe it is, I'm the same person I was when I was a kid. Everyone's like, 'Of course you are,' but I'm like, 'No, seriously.' I liked 'ThunderCats' when I was a kid; I call myself Thundercat now.
I remember, with Kendrick on 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' I was in tears. I literally was because it had pulled me and pushed me and stretched me and crushed me and expanded me. It was like I didn't know which way was up. By the end of it, I felt like I was floating in the ocean like a carcass.
Creatively, I'm not one to advocate people knowing every little nuance about you sometimes.