Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've always been a fan of album covers with no writing on them and have used them a lot in my own groups.
It took me quite a while to find my natural voice. I'm glad I stuck around long enough to see that happen.
Even when I'm making my own solo records, I'm collaborating with people. It keeps things interesting for me.
I would only tell a story if I was being mercilessly heckled. That's the only time I would talk to the audience.
Anything lower than mid-six figures is not going to get me interested in that. And honestly, I just don't want to.
I'm not a human interest story, man. I'm just a musician trying to make some small records and be happy, be peaceful.
You run the risk of falling on your face, but, again, music is an individual pursuit - it is made to please yourself first.
I've had songs that were spread out over a number of years, and I've written some in ten minutes, and everything in between.
I grew up in a small, rural community, where my extended family were mountain-folk type people, and some were very religious.
I was never super comfortable playing music in front of people anyway. Now I enjoy it, but it wasn't the easiest thing to get past.
Naturally, if I'm singing over really loud music, my approach is gonna be different than if I'm singing over some quiet acoustic music.
I really love that type of music where someone can take a guitar or light instrumentation and a beautiful voice and can send me somewhere.
I don't think I've ever gotten to the point where I sent out Christmas cards! But if I did, they would have to feature my pets, that's for sure.
I've always been haunted by the devastating voice and beautiful songs of Tim Hardin. I can't imagine anyone hearing him and not feeling the same.
It's a different kind of satisfaction, different kind of enjoyment than making your own songs, to remake someone else's song that you really like.
My favorite record, growing up, was 'Songs of the Haunted House,' a Disney record that was just wackiness. It's still one of my favorites, actually.
I used to throw a lot of stuff against the wall, just to see what ended up sticking; now I'm pretty much using everything that I create for a record.
There's lots of singers that I love; I don't know if I used any of them as role models. Maybe I would have been a better singer when I started if I had.
I'm a very private person. What I did in the past or what somebody heard me do or has a bootleg of me doing...well, if you have a bootleg, then I did it.
The Trees was four complete nuts. We didn't have a damn thing in common except insanity. So we fought a lot. And we had two brothers - who fought like brothers.
I think when people hear your music, sometimes they get deeply attached to it and think they know something about you, that you're kindred spirits or something.
Have I tried a black pudding? I'll eat anything - I'm not finicky - but that's not to say it takes any courage to eat black puddings because I find them delicious.
The more years you put behind you, hopefully making music that surpasses what you did before, you're playing bigger places and it kind of weirdly becomes a business.
The pleasure of other people is a byproduct of the pleasure that comes from yourself so I cannot judge or look down on someone who does whatever they feel like doing.
You're charging money to have people come watch you play; I want them to feel taken someplace good or provoked into thinking my way for an hour and a half or two hours.
I had a lot of jobs when I was younger. Where I grew up, there was a lot of agricultural jobs, so I worked on a lot of farms. I worked in the pea fields, harvesting peas.
I think you can find yourself in life perhaps not really being the master of your own life and it is within your own will and tenacity whether you switch the roles or not.
If Brian Eno wanted to make a record, I'd definitely clear some time in my calendar. John Cale, too. Those guys consistently make great records, always doing their own thing.
I think there's something therapeutic in singing about anything, whether it's what you've written or whether it's someone else's song. I find both satisfying in different ways.
It's satisfying and gratifying to make your own music, but I personally don't get the same enjoyment out of the music that I make as I do from somebody else's music that I like.
When you get a chance to play with people - informally is one thing, but when you hook up and make something that's going to last or mean something to someone, I take it very seriously.
You make music to move people and you don't get to pick who you move. You just don't. It's exclusionary and elitist and I just never felt that way about music, of all things. The great unifier.
It's like soul music, isn't it all soul music? Otherwise what is it, non-soul music? I-have-no-soul music? Soulless music? People need to put a name on something to identify it, and I understand it.
It was really difficult to sing; nobody showed me how to do it. I remember early Screaming Trees shows in the '80s when I'd walk away with a pounding headache from trying to sing way out of my range.
You just realize that you don't know everything there is to know. The older I get, the less I know, and that's a good thing. When I was young, I knew everything, and everything wasn't necessarily good.
I wanted 'Imitations' to be a fully realized record from start to finish, with a cohesive sound and a sequence that took you from one song to the other, just like I would with a record of original stuff.
I think when you're young and you get together with a group of guys who think like you and you start to make something that moves you as a group of people and you have a common goal, that's an exciting time.
Nobody likes to believe that they need anybody's help in anything, and the smarter you are - and I'm not smart - or the tougher you are - and at times I thought I was pretty tough - the more trouble you have.
Me and Kurt Cobain were both listening to a bunch of Lead Belly and diggin' it. We thought, 'Let's do an EP of all Lead Belly songs.' We did a couple, and both of us were like, 'Nah, this is a bad concept.' We set it aside.
When I was in high school, I took French. I barely passed and didn't learn anything at all. There was a joke among me and my friends in the class that nothing sounded more ridiculous than a guy with a country accent speaking French.
Yeah, well, I guess Andy Williams would be considered by some to be schmaltzy, but to me, he's one of the greatest singers of all time. Just absolutely amazing. And if anyone doesn't believe me, just YouTube him. He's just one of a kind.
When I was a kid in the late '60s and early '70s, my parents and their friends would play the records of Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Perry Como, music with string arrangements and men singing songs that sounded sad whether they were or not.
Usually I get asked to do stuff that's cool, and if I ever can't do something, it's usually, because of logistics, I don't have the time for it. Rarely do I get ask to do something that I'd rather not do. I usually do it if I feel that it's something I can do.
I have to have animals. They really make life worth living, and my world actually revolves around them. They know exactly when it's time to get up, exactly when they're supposed to get their food, and they let you know. Mine are right there in my face, first thing every morning.
I can't say what people use the experience of listening to songs for, but I would never tell somebody what it is supposed to mean. That defeats the purpose of making it. Hopefully, whoever connects with it connects with it in their own way, and it can mean whatever it is supposed to mean to them.
I was listening to punk rock in the '70s as a young kid, but all by myself; I never met anyone that listened to that kind of music. Just by chance, I was in detention, and one of the guys in the class was Van Conner... I started talking to him and found out that we listened to some of the same music.
When I was a kid, I got caught shoplifting by a store security guard in Ellensburg. The next time I saw that store guard was when I got thrown in jail again - this time for not paying court fees. The guy happened to be in jail, too, right next to me. That's what Eastern Washington is like - you never get too far away from anybody.
I was in Screaming Trees - I wasn't really interested in playing quiet music in a live setting. But I would get asked quite often to do a show or open for somebody, and I always said no. Finally, I was asked if I would open for Johnny Cash, and Johnny Cash was one of my dad's favorite heroes. So that's why I started doing solo shows.
Working with different people and do things that normally I would not do makes the music interesting for me to continue. It keeps me alive. When I'm doing something alone, that is mine, I know how it is. But when I'm working with someone else, I also see the view from the other, and usually learn something new, try something different. This is very important to my happiness.