At 23 or 24 I signed a decent record deal with Mercury Records (which then got sucked into Island and eventually spat me out on Island Def Jam). I brought them a handful of alt-rock / rap songs that I’d been working on with a few music industry veterans who believed in me. The songs were good, not great, but they saw my skill and most importantly my potential. I often referenced Weezer and Wu-Tang, and they told me understood my creative vision.