Growing up, I was discouraged from telling personal stories. My dad often used the phrase 'Don't tell anyone.' But not about creepy things. I don't want to lead you down the wrong path. It would be about insignificant things. Like, I wouldn't make the soccer team, and my father would say, 'Don't tell anyone.'

When I was growing up, I didn't know who Jewish people were, what it was to be Jewish.

I actually wasn't really the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walked up and was like, 'You're fat. You're gay. I'm outta here!' I was always more kind of awkward and introspective.

Sometimes I take this women's exercise class called Core Fusion at a place called Exhale. I shouldn't say it's a women's class. There's maybe two men.

I've always had a sick sense of humor, and I've always wanted that to permeate the music because I don't take myself seriously. I take the music seriously, but I know I'm not God's gift to anyone except my mom.

Bad movies: they can be tatty classics of crazed ineptitude, like Edward D. Wood's 'Glen or Glenda' and 'Plan 9 from Outer Space,' or big-budget misfires like the 1987 'Ishtar,' a would-be comedy that sent Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman on a Hope-Crosby Road to Dystopia.

I loved traditional musical comedy. That was my passion. Then 'Spring Awakening' happened, and it took that rock n' roll and pop music to change gears for me.

You may not be able to change a situation, but with humor you can change your attitude about it.