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Being jazz-trained, things happen spontaneously. Even though it's funk rock, we still have the instincts of a jazz musician.
Actually, I started off playing by ear and being around a bunch of musicians playing in the streets in the different parades.
I've lost a bunch of friends - some of them in jail, some of them made bad choices, some of them aren't where they should be.
Life would be pretty boring if I didn't explore. It's about letting my ears take me on an adventure to soak in everything I can.
When you start playing as young as me, and you've been in front of audiences your entire life, this is literally what I grew up doing.
We have to let the younger generations take our music - and approach it the way they want - but just teach them where it all comes from.
When I was a kid, my friends and I formed a band, Trombone Shorty's Brass Band. When I was six, I was a bandleader for my brother's band.
I was put on so many different musical stages growing up that I didn't think about what kind of music we played. I just thought music was music.
I grew up right in the heart of Treme, so it was a real music neighborhood, and there was a bunch of bands like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band around.
Whatever fame or success we have right now came strictly from us playing. As long as we focus on music and not trying to be stars, I think we'll be okay.
From the food to the Mardi Gras Indians to the brass bands and the second liners parading through the street, Jazz Fest presents New Orleans in one place.
I wanted to become a better entertainer, and I learned from my brother James Andrews. And I've been studying some tape of James Brown and different people.
I got a chance to work with Mystikal and Mannie Fresh and Juvenile and all these people as I was growing up, and so that really influenced everything I do.
Music in New Orleans has always been the heartbeat that drives the city. It was that even before Katrina, and that's what we had to rely on after the storm.
We had a bunch of instruments around the house. Like, I played different instruments, trumpet, bass, drums, piano, all that, but whatever I could get my hands on.
I spent a lot of time with the Neville Brothers and Dr. John and different people. They play different styles of music, and it allowed me to learn different styles.
I listen to Nine Inch Nails, Green Day, U2, and it becomes part of me, comes out in my music. Wherever it goes, there will always be the fabric of New Orleans in it.
We come from New Orleans, so everything is emotional - for, once the music takes over, and we start blowing, we go into a different zone that takes over our whole body.
As a kid, I would wake up, and there'd be a jazz funeral while I'm walking to school. And when I come home, you can find Rebirth band playing for a birthday party the same day.
I've dreamed a lot of things and a lot of them have come true. The Grammy nomination was the last thing on my list before I had to write a new one. So I'm working on a new one.
I didn't grow up during the time that Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis and all those people were playing. So it's not really my responsibility to keep it up, what they were doing.
No matter what kinds of problems we might be going through, or what kinds of problems the world might be going through, music is the place where we can all get along. We can all jam.
I may be taking a different approach, being a guy leading a band with a trombone, but if you take that out of it and put in a guitar or keyboard, it would be considered funk-rock music.
When I'm creating a song, I'm thinking of a hip-hop beat playing on a live drum set - kinda like the Roots would do. I will put New Orleans music on top of that with some other rhythms.
Music is changing. I'm just doing what I'm doing, and hopefully in the next 20, 30 years, some kids can take what I'm doing and change it again. If the music doesn't move, then it's dead.
New Orleans is like my blood; it's not going anywhere. And then I just take different things that I've learned over the years and add them to what I'm doing with the natural New Orleans sound.
Whenever I go jamming, people are looking to cut me. The young ones learn my stuff and come play it at me, and I have to learn other stuff. I feel a lot of pressure. But it's cool. It's a good pressure.
No matter what setting I play in, I will always be New Orleans. It's one of the only cities where you can hang out with the Marsalis family, the Neville brothers, whoever it might be, and we all play together.
I was given a horn at an early age. I never really got a chance to think about doing anything else until I was about 18, when I realized I could do something else if I wanted to. In my teens, I was rolling in it.
There's a lot of music at my fingertips that I can be influenced by. And just because I play a horn, I don't need to sound, or try to capture, what was happening before me. I can just respect it and learn from it.
Most people don't even know what a trombone is. It's not that popular as a front instrument... I picked it up and fell in love with it as a kid. It's a difficult instrument, but I like doing things that seem impossible.
If I have to be considered any type of jazz artist, it would be New Orleans jazz because New Orleans jazz never forgot that jazz is dance music and jazz is fun. I'm more influenced by that style of jazz than anything else.
Everywhere I go around the world, we have fans of New Orleans. Sometimes we go places, and people don't really know who we are, but they know New Orleans, and once we say we are from New Orleans, we have a lot of supporters.
It doesn't matter where we are. We can be marching down the streets of New Orleans, or we can be onstage in front of 15,000 people. As long as I know that I'm about to put my horn to my mouth and play some notes, that's what I most look forward to.
Sometimes it's very hard for other New Orleans musicians to break out. It starts with the musician. They have to be willing to take a risk. Playing in the city, you can get comfortable. You think things are going well, but you're always in the city.
I had a lot of older musicians looking out for me, teaching me, and showing me things when they saw how interested I was in music from a young age. They would take me to the side and just play some things in my ear, and I would try to play it back to them.
There's pride on Bourbon Street for the musicians that work there. They take it very seriously. I've never worked there or played in band there, but it's a part of the city. They play for the tourists and represent a whole different side of the culture of our city.
I was listening to Ministry and Garth Brooks and Charlie Pride and Wynton Marsalis, and then I would listen to Juvenile or Lil Wayne. It's just that I'm a big fan of music. I'm a student of music. And I just want to learn and keep enhancing my education about the music.
You've got different people that have different views of New Orleans. When you say 'New Orleans,' you have people who just think of the Neville Brothers. You've got people that think of Louis Armstrong. You say 'New Orleans,' and you've got people that think of Lil' Wayne.
When we're ready to do the dress rehearsal, we'll rehearse in the dark. No lights. The reason why I do that is because I don't want the band to rely on me for anything. 'Cause anything can happen - I might stop singing or unplug the mic, just so everybody knows: Keep going, no matter what.
I'm always trying to emulate guitar. Especially when I'm playing the trombone, that's what I think about. Like, I listen to guitar players every day: Warren Haynes, Lenny Kravitz, Prince, different people. And I'm always trying to find out a way how I can get my trombone to sound like that.
It was just music all day... My neighbors were musicians, and my brother and my family and everybody... It was just a musical neighborhood. I think the neighborhood was such a good family type of vibe for me that I didn't even realize some of the people weren't my real family till later on in life.
In New Orleans, people are still influenced by one another. You got these bands that play every week on Frenchmen Street, and on their breaks, they might go see the reggae band that's right next door. You might get the musicians from the reggae band to sit in with the brass musicians. Everyone is having fun.
Whenever we can, we try to talk to students. If I can, I'll invite kids from a school to a sound check and take questions from them. I want to show them it's cool to play the trombone. Kids are influenced by what's accessible to them. It's hard for kids to be introduced to music other than what they see on TV and video.