I'm not interested in a persona.

I'm not a big fan of Robert Plant's lyrics or his singing.

What I had to learn was, that I'm responsible for my perception of things.

With time and experience comes a different perception of what's going on around you.

I never thought I'd be on the cover of the 'Atlanta Journal' unless I killed someone.

Since the early Nineties it's been very fashionable to say, 'It's all about the music.'

My music is how I feel, and that's changed from being twenty years old to being forty-three years old.

In 2000, I fell in love. I had never felt anything like that before in my life. It kind of took me over.

Now as a musician, if you have it within you, you can create your own reality. Believe me, it's a novelty.

I make decisions based on my work, not based on meetings with my business managers, who I don't like to meet.

It's funny, after a while, you get tired of having to fight someone because they don't like the way you look.

I like unkempt; I don't mind if I have holes in my jacket or whatever. I think people should look more the way they feel.

Musicians playing together, it's a conversation, and ideally I want our conversation to be really intriguing and interesting and beautiful.

What I had to learn was, that I'm only responsible for my perception of things. The world's not out to get you. That's not the way it works.

Life is different than it was in the Nineties. I'm a dad, and there are other things I have to get done in an afternoon than just being an artist.

I'm interested in authentic experience and the essence of that creative place, and where those myths begin and where they become real on any level.

The way we're going about things and what we want to do, we feel it has to be a really pure essence of music. That's where you get the most out of it.

Right now, I've never been more impressed by the new bands that we meet. I may be 10, 20 years older, but we're all on the same page about culture, music and life.

How many new rock stars have come around that have anything to say at all? Guys where you even want to know what they're thinking? Are they thinking? Where did it go astray?

There have been multitudes of times in my career where I could have taken an easier road or a more commercial path, and I've been just like, 'That's not gonna make me happy.'

If you had told me at 45 years old that I would have to go on tour to get rest, I would've said, 'That's not how it works.' But nothing can be more gratifying. I'm a very hands-on dad.

I didn't want to be told what to do. I don't want to water down my music to fit into their formats. I know what rock and roll is to me, but everything's turning into one big commercial.

I'm the weirdo. There have been multitudes of times in my career where I could have taken an easier road or a more commercial path, and I've been just like, that's not gonna make me happy.

Part of getting older is realizing that you can integrate all these different areas of your life, rather than the adolescent mindset, which for me lasted a long time, which says, 'It's all or nothing.'

When I think about the real pioneers of the psychedelic movement in a musical sense, not just the culture, everything had a handmade sort of vibe to it. We're inventing our culture as we move along into this.

There's the conventional wisdom, of which I have none, where you get a record deal, you get a publicist, you get a campaign, and you do the tour, but none of that adds up to things like nuance and subtlety and dynamic.

I think that some of the best Crowes stuff we did had that spontaneous vibe. Thats something thats always interested me in music. Im not really the kind of person to get too bogged down in the details. I think that takes away from the emotion and the vibe of what youre doing.

I'd like to think that, at the end of the day, you can look at the things that I made as a young person and the things I'll continue to make as I get older and they'll be consistently interesting and soulful things, and if you like them they'll be a part of your dimension, as well.

The counterculture has nothing to do with Dolce & Gabbana having a 'Hippy Summer' or something. Street kids, and kids who want to live in any sort of counter-cultural experience other than what's being presented by the mainstream media or political climate, or 'normal' cultural climate, are never going to look like that.

Share This Page