But while mum and dad were incredibly caring it was also a very chaotic household where everyone fought about everything. So I know what it's like to internalize all that chaos.

I grew up in Chicago so I've always been a Bears fan. Dad used to take me to Bears games and Cubs games. My brother used to ride me over to Lake Forest College on his Honda Supersport and we'd watch the Bears practice. I remember those guys out there as monsters - they were the biggest things I've ever seen!

I've never tried to find my real parents. I'm very grateful to my mum and dad for adopting me - they're completely incredible people. It was my dad who encouraged me to question everything to forge my own path to think to read. I always felt it was my right to question everything.

In Heaven I believe my dad is somewhere doing something nice. I feel I've been too lucky to travel this far without somebody guiding me.

My dad is a Jack Nicholson lookalike and a frustrated performer my mother's into reading and poetry. I suppose the thing I owe them most is my confidence.

I think the hardest thing about making music now is being a great dad at the same time. There's an insanity that goes with writing - a mad scientist thing that you have to go through - and sacrificing a kid's upbringing to do that is not an option.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews you have to give value to the criticism.

One of the things I like about when I tour sometimes is that occasionally you'll see a dad there with his 12-year-old son and they're both enjoying it.

And I love Mel Brooks. My Dad loved his movies too they're awesome the kind of thing that if you're in for ten minutes you're in for two hours.

Losing my parents was the most crushing thing that ever happened to me. I lost my dad when I was 26 and it changed my life entirely.

My mother and dad were big animal lovers too. I just don't know how I would have lived without animals around me. I'm fascinated by them - both domestic pets and the wild community. They just are the most interesting things in the world to me and it's made such a difference in my lifetime.

My father came from a very poor background but I was very fortunate in the sense that we were never in need. My dad was determined to make sure that we didn't want for things. He wanted to give us more opportunity than he had a better shot at a better life.

'I Know You Care' is about my dad. And I haven't seen him for a long long time. And my parents divorced when I was really young. And I guess I just wanted a - it was my way of saying that I wasn't bitter or angry anymore. I was just sad and just felt like something was missing.

Not much shocked me. You know I worked in a home for Alzheimer's patients and my dad used to be really into murders and stuff so I saw dead bodies. It desensitised me to a lot of things.

My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom my dad they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.

I'll back up anything my dad says.

My dad's whole family is in Madras and I was born in America so we didn't have that big Indian community. I don't really have anything interesting to say about it. When I talk about it people are like 'meh let's talk about something else.'

I haven't been baptised. My dad's not in the church and is not a religious person. My mum is more spiritual - she does Thai-chi and goes to Stonehenge and things like that. I'm proud to be pagan. Finland is not really a religious country. I'm still looking for my god.

My dad's a beautiful man but like a lot of Mexican men or men in general a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more I would say conscious evolved.

Overcoming my dad telling me that I could never amount to anything is what has made me the megalomaniac that you see today.

My dad never blew anything up but he probably had friends who did. He and my mom have always preached that the pen is mightier than a Molotov cocktail.

My dad says I could sing before I could talk if that's possible. I was always humming and things like that.

One of the scary things is that when you're a kid you look at your dad as the man who has no fear. When you're an adult you realize your father had fear and that you have it too.

My Dad used to tell us: 'En este pais ustedes van a poder lograr todas las cosas que nosotros no pudimos' 'In this country you will be able to accomplish all the things we never could.'