"I sang all my life. My parents had me singing around the house when I was younger. I'm not from a showbiz family or anything. It's just something I enjoyed doing. When I started getting into seventh or eighth grade, I became part of the theater program. I went to LA County High School for the Arts and did more singing there. It's really something I did on the side and then I met David Foster. I was working with a voice teacher who was a friend of the family's. David Foster called him and told him he needed a singer for an event he was doing. That's how that started." Interview, 2001. "I hope to break through the Top 40, not by changing what I do but by changing the way people think." - from People Weekly: June 21, 2004 "The shower is my time to open up my operatic chops, because of the enormous echo. You sound five times as big in the shower, so I break into some "Nessun Dorma" [from Puccini's Turandot] or Pearl Jam. You've got to go big when you're in the shower. There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva." "No matter what your age and no matter where you come from, everyone can change the world in some way, whether it's being a mentor to someone younger than you or someone that doesn't have as much experience as you. If you're passionate enough, you can do whatever you want and definitely change the world."