David Friedman

My career keeps shifting; I keep doing the next thing and it keeps growing. ”

I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure. ”

My first career was as a coach and a teacher. ”

I'm not comfortable singing in front of people yet. That's going to take another 100 performances. ”

I have a musical called Goodbye and Good Luck, based on a Grace Paley short story. I also have King Island Christmas, and there are 20 different productions of it this year. ”

As a person, I'm not that hopeful, but somehow the hopeful part of me reveals itself through my songs. ”

I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted. ”

I wanted to produce Nancy LaMott's albums, so I created my own record company. ”

In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure. ”

It's an interesting line that I walk. The AIDS crisis has done a lot for my songs and made them proliferate, and my songs have contributed a lot to that cause as well. ”