Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We thought the hardest thing in the world was to get a record deal, then the hardest was to get a No. 1 record, and then the hardest thing is to stay at the top. It's a lot of work.
We keep trying to get better - constantly working at it. We love to tour. I love to play in front of people. You sit there, and everybody's smiling, and you're smiling. It's a good time.
I think, bad times, I sit down and I play - there's definitely certain songs that touch in certain ways. I go back to 'Moonlight Sonata' by Beethoven; that usually takes care of everything.
I just wanted to release an album of piano music for music's sake. I'm not expecting to sell millions of albums. It's was just nice to be able to sit down at an acoustic piano and make some music.
A lot of my friends are doctors, and the difference between me and them is there's no musical emergencies to pull me away from dinner. 'I need the chords for that song right now!' No, it can wait.
Every time you're on stage, you look out at a packed house, people all the way up to the top, people having a blast, everybody forgetting about the world for a couple hours. That's a special thing.
I went to Temple Emanu-El, and my rabbi, Rabbi Landsberg, was a huge influence on me. When I was 7 and went to kindergarten, there he was, a young rabbi who didn't wear a yarmulke and rode a motorcycle.
I'm in a very successful band. We all love each other. It ain't ever breaking up. I also have a terrific hobby that became a full-time job. My only problem? There's not enough time to sleep in my world.
I remember, when I was very young and going to the Fillmore East and watching three of my favorite bands in one night, I'd want a hit. I want to hear the songs that brought them to that pinnacle of success.
The Broadway run of 'Memphis' has been like going to the moon. It was so great to actually open at the Shubert Theatre and then amazing to be nominated for eight Tonys and attend all the luncheons and events.
We strive to have new records. We strive to have new songs on the radio. That feels good that we can gain those new fans and still bring out our fans that have been with us for some of the ride or all of the ride.
When I'm writing Broadway, it's for a character, a man, a woman, an old guy, a kid. In the band, you're talking in your own voice in the lyrics, saying what you think or feel. On Broadway, you're expressing that through a character.
The wild thing is that when I'm in the band, I can control my destiny with four other guys. As a composer sitting in the audience, you can throw good vibes at everybody, but you can't control anybody's destiny, so it's really unsettling.
When you're on tour with the band, it's a different mentality. You don't sightsee because you're making sure you can do the show. But in musicals, I don't have to sing or play: I just have to use my brain, and the rest of the time, I'm free.
We have to play 'Livin' on a Prayer,' 'Bad Medicine.' We have to play them, and we want to play them, and that's what we're supposed to do. It's like going to see The Beatles and them not playing your favorite song. It's not the right thing to do.
I love the Memphis sound. When I was 16-and-a-half, with my driver's permit, I was playing New Jersey clubs in a 10-piece band; we had a horn section and would play great, great songs like 'Hold On! I'm Comin'' and 'Knock on Wood' and 'Midnight Hour.'
Our job is to be performers and give everybody a great night where they can forget about their problems and the world's problems, because they're always going to be there. They were there since the beginning, and they're going to be there until the end.
A musical is really one of the most complicated beasts. It's a play, and there's music... and there's dancing... it's unbelievably satisfying to get something up out of your brain onto a piece of paper ... and start the process and then see it on the stage.
You start out with your eyes wide open, and you've got dreams, and we worked really, really hard, and ours came true. So - and we're fortunate enough to keep putting out number one records, and we're fortunate enough to get out there and keep playing, and we truly have a blast.
One of the greatest things about our band is that we bring the American dream to the world. Here's a bunch of kids that were living in nowhere New Jersey, and we made it through a lot of practice and a lot of work and a lot of luck. It shows the world, 'If we did it, you can do it.'
We never do the same set twice... We play for at least two and a half hours, sometimes longer, so there's a lot of songs from all the records. And we know there's a stable we as fans would want to hear, so we always give them, then we change up a bunch of songs and throw in a couple new ones.
It's a sense of pride, a sense of you set out to get a record deal, and we got that. We set out to get a No. 1 record, and then we got that. Then you say, 'Wow, that was impossible and now even more impossible is to stay No. 1 and stay current and put out new records that people care about,' and we really stuck to that.