Q. How are you feeling now that you're going to be featured on MTV?
A. I'm kind of overwhelmed, considering I've watched MTV all my life! So it's definitely a big accomplishment for me.

Q. You entered a contest to write a song for MTV's show "Parental Control." Did you expect to win?
A. No, I kind of just sent in my entry thinking I would just see what happens, but I really didn't think I was going to win because I figured there would be so many other people sending their entries in. But then I got the call a couple days later and I was completely shocked - I couldn't believe it.

Q. Where were you when you found out that you won?
A. I was actually just chilling at home, I think I was actually watching MTV at the time, so that was kind of ironic.

Q. How did you react?
A. Well I was just sitting, and my whole family was in the room with me, and I got the call and I was like, "Are you serious?" - because nobody could hear what was going on on the phone, and then I told my family and they were completely shocked.

Q. So what were you doing a year ago, before this whole thing started?
A. I was in school, doing acoustic shows and just kind of doing my own thing. I was working with producers, making songs and sending them out to labels, but then we found that contest and I just entered it, and that's what really got my music career started.

Q. How long have you been trying to break into the music industry?
A. Well I started playing guitar when I was about 12 - I started playing drums at 5 but I wasn't recording anything then - but then when I was 14 I started recording songs, just me and an acoustic, sometimes my dad would even play drums. I posted some of the songs on MySpace, and that's how I got discovered by some producers and ever since then I've been recording songs with them. I'd say about every weekend I'd record a song, so I guess I really started recording when I was around 14.

Q. You can play guitar, drums, and also bass. Can you play any other instruments?
A. Not yet, but I'm kind of trying to teach myself keyboard right now. I'm really determined, but right now I'd say just those three.

Q. Which one is your favorite to play?
A. Probably guitar, since I play it every day. I've been playing drums longer, but I still think guitar is a lot more fun, and since I do it every day, it's become a lot more natural for me now.

Q. How did you go about teaching yourself to play instruments?
A. Well, when I was younger I used to play sports, but then I had an injury and couldn't play anymore. So I asked my dad to buy me a guitar, just to have something to do, so I would just sit in my room and put my fingers wherever I thought it would make noise. My dad actually used to play a long time ago, and I'd see him playing and kind of just picked up on it. So then I figured if I could play guitar, I could play bass, but it was definitely a lot more different than I thought.

Q. What's your songwriting process like? What inspires you to write music?
A. Pretty much anything! I have a lot of kids on MySpace telling me things that they've gone through, and sometimes I take their stories and put my own twist on it. Or obviously if I'm having a bad day or if something happens to me I'll write from there, but I like to include things that I go through along with things that I hear other people are going through, because then I think people can relate to the songs more. And then there are those songs that you write just to see where they're gonna go, to experiment a little bit, so it's kind of different every time.

Q. You have a few music videos out already. Were they your ideas?
A. The idea for the "U Suck" video was just to prove that I could actually play all the instruments, and this was the song for "Parental Control," so we tried to tie the show in with the lyrics also. As for the "Sick" video, we just wanted to have fun, and I thought it would be a cool idea to put a bunch of friends in it doing their own thing and just having a good time. So I definitely contributed my own ideas, and I'm pretty happy with both of them.

Q. So those were your actual friends in the video?
A. Yeah, well actually I had friends in both videos, but in the "Sick" video it's just a bunch of my friends and family friends. We shot it about five minutes from where I live so it wasn't that hard to get them in there.