Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Some time ago, I learned how to say, 'What's the worst thing that could happen up there?' I could mess up some words, I could sing flat... I could appear human. Is that really the worst thing in the world?
The 'rock world' is a lot smaller than it used to be. It's doing a lot less things than it used to be. From Woodstock back in the day and Rage Against the Machine, no one sells millions of records anymore.
There are people that bring artists to me to look at it and it's a question of whether I like their music and their look and if I think there's something they have that makes them different and commercial.
Being an evil dude: You create this false identity of who you really are and hide behind that as a means to deal with your peers and to hide behind your social awkwardness and inabilities and inadequacies.
People think that singing and playing is easy. It's not. It's easy to strum along, but if you actually want to really play, where it's important, that's a hard thing and not too many people are good at it.
It's very important that people realize: the air is being taken away, the oceans are being taken away, the room is being taken away, but we're so worried about gas prices that we don't even see this stuff.
I can see the use and value of religion, just as I can see the use of mud wrestling, yoga, astronomy and sadomasochism. but I reject the idea that you can't be a deep human being without it or any of them.
The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn't just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one.
Back then, as a kid, you made a choice of who you liked, and it was either us or 'Take That.' And if you liked 'East 17', it showed you knew what was going on, you were clued up, had better taste in music.
Plus, you know, when I was young, there was a lot of respect for clowning in rock music - look at Little Richard. It was a part of the whole thing, and I always also believed that it released the audience.
I'll smoke weed occasionally, on special occasions like a movie night or something. I like to drink beer but whenever it comes to hard drugs, I really believe that they hurt your body, deplete your energy.
The way I make music is just a reflection of how I think music should be made. Where you sit in a studio, and you make music, and you use technology to your advantage, not to hide all the blaring mistakes.
I've still got the same friends that I grew up with, I still go to the same places that I used to go to when I was younger, and it's just a very special place to me. I'm still very proud to call Iowa home.
I'm the guy that gets up at three in the morning to jot down an entire sheet of lyrics for something that won't be recorded for six months. You have to get it down when you can, because thoughts are fluid.
I grew up with a rotary phone in my house and that seems a world away, but that's what I was used to as a kid. So now things seem complicated to me, but to kids born right now, they don't feel complicated.
Believe it or not, the best way to put somebody at ease or bring them to a level of trust is to know as much if not more about them than they know about themselves or the organization to which they belong.
It's much easier for me to say that, the kind of music I didn't listen to was pretty much that. I mean everything, from jazz to classical to popular. And Tibetan horns were a great part of it in 1966, '67.
Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn't see a space in which we could get anything together.
Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.
What's been missing from digital music sales has been the possibility of added depth. In a printed package one can only include so many images and so much text - for example - but digitally it's wide open.
My dad was very influential with the music he exposed me to. He was really into blues and folk, so he'd play me guys like Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker and Richie Havens - a lot of very emotional players.
I think my least favourite thing to listen to is perfect songs, perfect performances. They don't feel human to me, and in that respect ,they lose any kind of sincerity. I don't know why. It's just my ears.
I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.
I'm interested in anyone cutting up music and doing remixes. I just don't think it would work in a live setting right now to do shows with a traditional DJ, but it's something that might happen eventually.
Usually when I make music, in my head I'm like 'this isn't Grimes, this is just some other project that you can release later, so there's no pressure and it doesn't matter and no-one's ever gonna hear it'.
Girls aren't beautiful, they're pretty. Beautiful is too heavy a word to assign to a girl. Women are beautiful because their faces show that they know they have lost something and picked up something else.
Other than rhythm, the only thing I could say is that I take a great deal of pride in every single sound I use. I'm always making sure that I'm not using a pre-set or something that everyone else has done.
Well, we were originally called Huey Lewis and the American Express. But on the eve of the release of our first record, our record label, Chrysalis Records was afraid that we'd be sued by American Express.
You cry out in your sleep - all my failings expose. There's a taste in my mouth, as desperation takes hold Just that something so good just can't function no more. When love, love will tear us apart again.
I don't like the triumphalism of the American narrative, this kind of "chosen people" complex that American people have, so it's inspiring to see people snub their noses at the American empire and succeed.
I always considered myself being an organizer. I'm very good at teaching singers, I'm very good at staging a show, to entertain people. But I never included myself. I never applied this to me as an artist.
In this business, it's important to constantly do things that you don't know how to do. I love touring and making records, but I've learned how to do that, so sometimes you just have to dive in and try it.
I have so much freedom to put whatever I want on a t-shirt, and it's cool because I get a lot of fan feedback so I like to see what kids like to wear and I like to use some of their ideas to make t-shirts.
I made an instrument which I'm really happy about, because I always wanted to have a machine that did this so once I established it as my unique tool, it was like, now I'm going to master it like a guitar.
In some ways, I always thought you're better off behaving like a rock star when you're a normal person. Because if you do it as a rock star, you'll end up in the papers and your life will be made a misery.
It all has to do with art - writing, painting, things I’ve done for a long time but just never had enough time to pursue. I have poetry - things that are designed for songs, but they’re always poems first.
It all has to do with art - writing, painting, things I've done for a long time but just never had enough time to pursue. I have poetry - things that are designed for songs, but they're always poems first.
It's not a case of 'look at me in my car'; it's more, 'look at the car'. I like the idea of other people enjoying them, because everything has become a bit faceless and nobody likes the motor car any more.
It's not difficult getting into the charts in Sweden. It's a very different musical climate, and in a very good way, I think, because artists like Jose Gonzalez or The Knife can actually get on the charts.
To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.
There's always music that moves me. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's within the parenthesis of rock or blues, or whatever. It's usually far more reaching than that. It can be in many different genres.
There's so many different styles and facets of the 360-degree musical sphere to listen to. From tribal to classical music, it's all there. If the bottom was to sag out of that, for God's sake, help us all.
The passing of John Bonham... Let's just put it... Before we say, 'the passing of John Bonham,' the introduction of John Bonham on the first album and 'Good Times Bad Times,' it changes drumming overnight.
North Carolina was on the vanguard of being for [ trans rights ], and that's why we're seeing this push back. The conservatives noticed that there had been a lot of progress and they tried to tamp it down.
I wrote 'Lakeside View Apartment Suites' with Roman in my arms. He was about a month old. I was playing left-handed and finally handed him over. On the demo of it, you can hear him crying in the next room.
When an ensemble is really tight or playing as one, it's a transcendental experience. It is spiritual. It goes beyond the ensemble. Ray and I and Robby and Jim were pretty tight, musically and spiritually.
There are definitely parts of me in most of the protagonists I write, but I find a bit of distance can be useful, so I often find myself better able to write from a point of view that isn't exactly my own.
I've got used to the fact - just about - that whatever I do is going to be compared to the other Beatles. If I took up ballet dancing, my ballet dancing would be compared with Paul (McCartney)'s bowling.
I made a deadline for myself that if I wasn't earning a living being a musician by 'A Boy Named Goo,' I was going to get back to school, get a degree, and go on with my life - and enjoy the memories I had.
Social media and music in general have been changing so fast. You can go on Twitter and go from one artist to another. What I really like about it is the opportunity to communicate directly with your fans.