All my friends were doing just dumb stuff that kids do, like making out with people at parties and starting to date... I didn't know any gay people growing up or any queer people growing up, and so I just really felt alone and kind of lost, and I just wasn't experiencing life.

I watched pretty much every coming out video on YouTube that has ever been posted; I watched it in between 14 and a half and 15. Those coming out videos, and those people on YouTube, those brave, brave, brave people on YouTube, without them, I don't know where I'd be.

Before I came out, the thought of someone calling me gay, even when I knew very well that I was, was petrifying.

Someone actually asked me once if I used coming out as a publicity stunt. It's cool that we live in a time when being gay could be seen as helping your career.

A lot of people tell me now I'm their inspiration. They say, 'I don't play baseball,' and then they mention whatever - engineer, doctor, college student, high school student - but they're hurt because, for some reason, people feel shame about themselves or embarrassed because they are short or skinny or fat or whatever.

We had experienced so much as kids, and I kind of feel like we learned a lot about the industry that put a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth, whether it was a couple of people we worked with or whether it was just trying to find the right inspiration or what have you.

I'm not really a fan of sleep, to be honest with you. I work out at 9:30 or 10 o'clock at night, and sometimes I just keep going. I've never been a big sleeper.

I drew a lot of inspiration from the Ginuwines, the Ushers, the Michael Jacksons, the James Browns, Sam Cooke.