Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I start asking my friends, "What do you think this means?" And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like "apocryphal," for instance.
Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.
Most people think a song is a song - three minutes, and you're done. I don't think this way. Songs are my wings. They're what I use to fly. It's very important for me to put everything in the right place.
I think I come under the singer/songwriter badge. I've always written songs right from the very beginning. Because of my style of playing people tend of me more of a guitar player than a singer sometimes.
My hair used to be real long, and my parents were encouraged when I cut it. They thought I was going 'straight,' but I was just getting weirder - at least in their eyes. I was getting into the punk thing.
I'd like to teach kids how to write songs. This will be my first year so I'm just as green as some of the rest of the folks. It's like a music camp and I get to hang out with some of the past contestants.
I've never been able to understand the seriousness of it all, the seriousness of pride. People talk, act, live as if they're never going to die. And what do they leave behind? Nothing. Nothing but a mask.
I like being out front, doing what I do, but then I also like playing in a band too. I'd like to do stuff like I did with Deee-lite. I went out and played with them and they were the stars, that was cool.
Although designers continue to dream of 'transparency' - technologies that just do their job without making their presence felt - both creators and audiences actually like technologies with 'personality.'
A few of these interviews have gone slightly awry, because every now and again there has been the odd conflict of interest between interviews because of the Iron Maiden record, and I am a bit long-winded.
But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.
You get up about 2-3 oclock in the morning and get through about 7 or 8 and 12 hours later you start all over. Thats the worst kind of work a person can do. You have to do these two shifts to get one day.
I hope America sees I am a goofy guy andI'm kind a crazy, I hope they see that I am a musician aswell, that I have music all around my body - I'm just exfoliating music, and I just hope America sees that.
A chance to work with the guys from Isis sounded like a lot of fun. I've always been into the atmospheric sounds they had created with that project and felt my sense of melody would meld well with theirs.
Whenever anyone sends me a link to a band, saying, 'These guys sound exactly like Soundgarden,' it's always some super simple sludge riff with a singer that sings high and screechy. And it's really awful.
RADIO IS DEAD. The once-bright star that was public broadcasting has been destroyed by greed and corproate muscle to the point that even the music that is completely repugnant is positioned to be popular.
You've got to just follow your heart and do your best work. For better or worse, I have followed my heart. There is no doubt in my mind or heart that everything I've done is exactly what I intended to do.
It can be really weird to say, 'Hey man, let's make a record and start with this horrible zither sound.' But I was obsessed with the idea of taking a sound and completely phenomenologically thrashing it."
Ramones or AC/DC are two bands that have managed to keep their signature sound and their signature formula for years and years and album after album after album, without it seeming like a dead-end street.
I had never been in charge of anything. I'd always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I'd never been in charge of an organization.
The exciting new thing, call it Internet.2, would be where links were updated and moved depending on where people click. That would give you the kind of content screening that you don't get at the moment.
In a movie, you're just passive; you're just watching a story that is told to you. But in games, I saw that you could be the main protagonist: you could be in the shoes of the hero and make the decisions.
I'm English and I am British. I don't know if I feel part of a music scene. Musically, I have as many feelings and affinity with Americans or Canadians, or all sorts of people as I do with English people.
The thing is that business and success, and how hard it is, doesn't look any different whether you're playing a gig at eleven o'clock at night or you're going to work at nine in the morning at a law firm.
I would advise dancers, musicians and others in the entertainment industry to take up yoga, as it clears the mind and creates a sense of balance and stillness which is important for any performing artist.
Basically I'm in the idea business -- whether it's a musical idea or a spoken idea ... If you wind up with a political system that wants to put idea men out of business, then you have worry on your hands.
I was seeing kids my age playing shows at their parents' houses or the couple of all-ages venues that existed. I feel like I saw so many different kinds of music that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.
The best slide solo I ever played was on... what's her name? That girl singer who used to be with that all-girl band? ... Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go's! That's who it was. I played on one of her albums.
Both of us knew the band had run its course. We were both unhappy doing it, but I think the way Andrew [Ridgeley] was being treated as the less important half of the duo had finally taken its toll on him.
Did Superman really want to save the world, or did he just feel like he had to? Would he much rather be a farmer? Maybe. Would he much rather be hanging out with his dad and his mom and his dog? Probably.
My favorite band at the moment is the Dresden Dolls, they're from Boston. It's a guy and a girl. She plays piano and he plays the drums and she also sings. You can find them on the web they're incredible.
You get caught up in a cycle at some point, so I broke the cycle and decided; I'm going to really write a lot of books, because I need to get in touch with that part of myself in order to make more music.
A lot of kids get disappointed. They expect me to be, like, 'Bwaah.' 'If I spend a minute with them, they end up saying, 'Wow, you're a nice, normal guy.' They hate it when they catch me out of my makeup.
My parents didn't have records, they didn't have radios, and they didn't listen to music. My grandmother was my main connection to art and music. She could play piano very well, and she had perfect pitch.
Sometimes it can be really exciting, but I avoid the blank page now. What I do is hand write everything. When you're hand writing, there's never a blank page, really. There's so much you can do with that.
I do try to pick music that is from different worlds and typically doesn't flow together. When you do that, you get songs with conflicting messages, but for me, it's on a musical level first and foremost.
I found out about college radio and this whole noise genre blew me away. When I saw that guys could just get up there and have no traditional music ability and be in a band, it was really appealing to me.
It's not a random chance that we have Alanis Morissette. She didn't evolve out of a null and void. She came from a former template. She borrowed styles and sounds from a very limited set of other artists.
I approach music - and this sounds crazy - as though I'm Phil Spector, and I'm cranking out these pop stars and forcing them to do all this stuff - except they're all me. But I'm not, like, transgendered.
I think it's fantastic when the young enrage their elders. I really do believe that if it's too loud, you are indeed too old, and that if it has been standing for too long, it needs a thorough inspection.
If I'm jetlagging, and I've missed some meals, and it gets to that point in a movie that you're supposed to cry, I'll let my defences down from around my inherent standing level of cynicism, and I'll cry.
We believe that anyone can do anything, and everyone's a star. And that's evident from the shows we do. It just feels like a whole bunch of people in a room celebrating something - maybe just being alive.
I don't think the music that I do is nostalgic in any way; I don't think about going back to nice, old-fashioned music. I'm certainly influenced by old music, but I want to bring it slap-bang up to today.
There's nothing more adult than being ripped away from friends and family, you know? Having to manage a life when you're not fully there, manage a life when you don't make a lot of money. It's very adult.
The technology is just so far gone. It's just like back in the day you needed a suitcase just to have a cell phone. The battery was so heavy, it was like carrying a gallon of soda around with you all day.
I want people to know about these visionary artists. I want people to know what they stand for and (that) they are representing something unique, something fresh. I am just so excited about their careers.
I guess my path feels sort of different now... I don't know what's going to happen, but I certainly want to make music a bigger part of my life in the future than it has been for the last couple of years.
Hmm... at some point when I was making 'Postcards,' it struck me, what the underlying themes for the record would be. It would be about choices, fears and doubts, and it had an existentialist theme to it.
I don't Twitter every day. I just think we should be more thoughtful with what we share. I don't care that you're turning a light on right now. That's great and all, but there's got to be a balance there.
I wanted to emulate music from America - young punks playing rock n' roll is what it was. I read part of Keith Richards' autobiography, and it was totally parallel with me, learning from American records.