He tells PartySmasherInc's Ben Weinman: "My dad warned me, 'what you're going to try to do for a living is a one in a million chance. Hardly anyone makes it in the music business. You need to go to college, get a proper education and raise a family - that's a guaranteed good living.' I said, 'Thanks dad, but no thanks, I'm going to give this music thing a chance.'"

And he says the reason he did make it was because of his Mastodon band members Troy Sanders, Bill Kelliher and Brann Dailor. He continues: "I met the right bunch of guys that had the same vision I did and they were willing to be hungry with me and willing to eat sardines and live on mustard and stuff like that. That's the demographic you have to form with other guys in order to get to where we are now."