The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased.

I know when I started I would have been happy to sound like the Beatles or Joe Tex or whoever. You want to sound like most bands, you want to sound like their records and that's how you learn your chops.

As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it's hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you're attached to it.

I'm not a huge fan of Las Vegas. It's a fun place to go to play a bit of poker but it's so man-made. And being quite environmentally conscious, I couldn't believe the amount of neon lighting in the city.

I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. It reminds me of when we were just starting out because we would open for other bands in the beginning.

To hear people saying, 'The music you are doing has really touched my life and it's moved me in a lot of ways. It's helped me get through some tough times.' That's the best compliment that you could get.

I gave everything I ever wrote to Johnny Cash. I think he said later in some interview that he would take them home and throw them in the lake with all the other demos. I'm sure he got a million of them.

I'm very proud of my records, but my most natural creative tendencies have been in live performing. There's a beautiful element to recording and making records, but I've always felt a little shy with it.

I married him because he told me it was the only way he could protect me. If we were just manager and client, my family could do whatever they wanted to get me back, but if I was his wife, they couldn't.

I think a lot of it had to do with, you know, I was always a daddy's girl. I was always wanting to please him, and I think he was pleased when he'd walk past my room and I was listening to those records.

We have so many distractions. We're losing the family unit. We're losing the one-on-one. We're becoming extremely narcissistic. And we have to be careful about that. There's a lot to deal with out there.

This world is so crazy. So many things are based on popularity versus talent. So there's a lot of folks who are not so talented, but they're popular and they have "x" amount of followers on social media.

It’s a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too.

I was quite the spoiled brat. I have quite a temper, obviously inherited from my father, and I became very good at ordering everyone around. I was the princess; the staff were absolutely terrified of me.

I curate my life in a way. It's always playing on my mind, kind of a love-hate relationship. I'm not one of those people who's, like, 'I wish Facebook wasn't around,' because, you know, it is what it is.

I'm very conscious of people having pretty short attention spans: I know, I'm guilty of it. I'm 17 now: what happens by the time I'm 21, am I a burn-out or something? Will they still listen to my record?

See, I'm not the type of writer that has 400 songs in a suitcase someplace on the shelf. I'm sort of a rise-to-the-occasion-type of writer, so when I know I'm going to record, I get in the mood to write.

I'm always looking for silhouettes that seem 'invisible' to the eye, as in that it's so well-tailored to your body that you won't even notice what you're wearing. It needs to be dramatic in a subtle way.

A woman comes to a table, and you're supposed to get up. Period. But I don't always do it. In general, you're supposed to do it every time. But sometimes you're seated against the wall, and it's awkward.

We live in a world where people like to pit women against each other. And this is why I love the idea of embracing other females who are doing what I'm doing. It's important for us to support each other.

I have a funny relationship with religion. I'm a big believer in ritualistic behavior as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. But I'm not a big fan of rules. And yet, we cannot live in a world without order.

Sometimes you feel amazing about life and other times you just feel fat and depressed, so I think it's good to be honest about that and to make light of it, I think humour is important, nobody's perfect.

At the beginning of every week, I like to sit down and figure out what I'm going to make. I probably try at least two new recipes a week. But I have my standbys - jambalaya, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

I don't consider myself a feminist, but I'm down for my first opportunity to say something to the world to be so meaningful. If you asked me, 'What do you want to say?' it would be, 'Love yourself more.'

I dabble in the jazz world, which is male-­dominated. If you had two women playing together, it became a shtick. It becomes a "girl group," and it has to be something cutesy. That's hard to contend with.

I like the simple 'I love your work' letters. You never get sick of people's appreciation. They think they're troubling you, but it's lovely people associate my songs with certain moments in their lives.

Creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize your neighborhood. And whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting down, must stand and face the hounds of hell, and rot inside a corpse's shell.

I would love to be in musical theater and be on Broadway. If someone were to offer me a position to do something like that, I wouldnt pass it down. Im a huge fan of musicals and I really want to do that.

The strange thing about hotel rooms is that they look familiar and seem familiar and have many of the accoutrements that seem domestic and familiar, but they are really weird, alien and anonymous places.

The idea of feeling old is much more the worry of a slightly younger person. When you are getting old, that becomes - psssh - completely secondary to the absolute understanding of how short your life is.

I couldn't resist. I went over and joined in, and we just sang the song together, ... They had no idea that I had written it, or who I was. I was just some weird guy who wanted to join in on the singing.

For a date, I'd like to do something different to drinks or dinner - like walking around Camden for a day in the sun, or something weird, like skydiving. Then at least if you don't get on you've had fun.

There's a certain fear of simplicity. I think that's the thing, when you're younger as an artist, you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you're playing, the better.

I don't consider writing a quiet, closet act. I consider it a real physical act. When I'm home writing on the typewriter, I go crazy. I move like a monkey. I've wet myself, I've come in my pants writing.

I can't bear working with a click track, we're not click track people. But for "Mercy Is ..." we all got in one mind because the song is delicate; it's not a song that showcases a vocal or some virtuoso.

Along the way, I've had different advice from different music producers. I've been told to tone it down, that the quiet parts of my voice are appealing and there's harshness to the loud part of my voice.

I'm spoiled - in all ways. I've been in a rock 'n' roll band since I was 13, and we had incredible success. When it ended, it had been so good that I just looked at it as time to try something different.

I'm a guitar player first. So my first hero was Angus Young from AC/DC. I used to copy every move that he did, play every lick that he would. I knew I wanted to be some kind of a rocker, back in the day.

The first album was a very successful record. It made me very visible and it's an immediate association, but I don't do that anymore. Now I'm true to myself as an artist again. I'm more vocally oriented.

Sometimes it [music in my head] is a curse, but it's also a blessing. It is a gift that I am completely grateful for. That's why I keep [making music], because I don't want to be ungrateful for the gift.

In life, you have people that love to party. That's me. People that love God. That's me. People that love sex. That's me. People that love people. That's me. And people that make mistakes.That's me also.

I gave a Christmas party last year - well, two Christmases ago - where I did a Sam Cooke show. I didn't perform as R. Kelly. I performed the Sam Cooke show from 1964, when he performed at the Copacabana.

'Glamour's always special to me; they gave me one of my first U.K. covers, and I was so excited when I found out I got a cover for it, so, I always, always have a special place in my heart for 'Glamour.'

I don't think Ireland has really embraced me, but it is not really for me to say. Obviously, people shouldn't embrace me just because I'm Irish, but it is where I'm from. I'm extremely proud to be Irish.

I spent nearly two hours deciding on an outfit that would look as if the subject of clothing had never crossed my mind, but would in fact show off my best features and miraculously hide the extra pounds.

Above all, we must understand that in leaving the toxic ways of the present we are healing ourselves, our places, and our planet. We rebel not as a last act of desperation but as a first act of creation.

I feel like my music has so many different things going on. I've always worked with many different producers. And a lot of times, each of them has a different thing that I really love about what they do.

I think we're at a really rich and fertile time in the zeitgeist about paying attention to diversity of all kinds - racial diversity, gender diversity, making room for a continuum that is more inclusive.

The members of my group are the ones who know me the best. They've watched me grow the most, so only my hyungs can see the things that other people can't. It may not just be 1 thing, but 10 other things.

I was five years old; I got addicted to being on stage. I felt like it was the most wonderful place on Earth, performing in front of an audience, who in this case were a bunch of classmates, kids my age.

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