Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I can embarrass myself very easily on guitar. It's funny because people say to me I can play anything; I'm God on the guitar. But I could make a big list of everything I can't play... I'm grateful that people don't notice that.
If you look over the years, the styles have changed - the clothes, the hair, the production, the approach to the songs. The icing to the cake has changed flavors. But if you really look at the cake itself, it's really the same.
I play with feeling so I need to hear what is coming out of the amplifier to inspire me; I dont just play mechanically. I need to hear what I am doing in order to create the next note. If I dont hear it then I cant feed myself.
The big thing that everyone forgets, you're famous and on TV and everything, but I think there's something very rewarding to be able to write a song, record it, and have it turn out as you heard it in your head, or even better.
One of the most harmful things in the music industry is 'record-by-committee,' where 10 people from the label gather around, and they make you write a 100 songs and decide which one's a hit. That takes the inspiration out of it.
I was interested in the electric guitar even before I knew the difference between electric and acoustic. The electric guitar seemed to be a totally fascinating plank of wood with knobs and switches on it. I just had to have one.
I'm going to keep thinking about topping myself every time. I can say very confidently that Alice In Chains have done that on every record. It surprises me. I don't go in there expecting that, but I do go in there hoping for it.
I'm also very impressed with the best people in experimental electronic world, like Peta and Eckart Aillers and Finez and Jim O'Rourke and Oren Umbarci and Francesco Lopez. Most of them use the computer as their main instrument.
By adding open strings to even the simplest chords, you can create voicings that sound sophisticated, but are really easy (and fun) to play. They're practical, not intimidating, and most certainly don't sound like 'jazz chords.'
In most places that are rich in guitar culture, everyone uses their fingers, like in Spain or Africa. In Japan there are string instruments played that way. It is not until you get in the States that you find people using picks.
A lot of festivals on a worldwide basis that I am seeing, they're trying to multi-genre it. Like, they put a wild card band on, like, us old guys that happen to have a record that has stayed in pop culture for as long as it has.
I feel fortunate to have made records during an era where people actually bought music. But I have friends in struggling up-and-coming bands now that will certainly never be able to pay the rent, because music has been devalued.
Addiction is a symptom of not growing up. I know people think it's a disease... If you have a brain tumor, if you have cancer, that's a disease. To say that an addiction is a disease is not fair to the real diseases of the world.
I think you've gotta be smart enough to be competent, but you've gotta be crazy enough to go out there and just let it all happen. I mean, you can rehearse and still not be musical, be tight and not be musical; we all hated that.
People fall into patterns at fast speeds, when really, to have a clear musical thought - the kind of musical thought that makes a melody work - our brains just can't think that fast. At a certain point, you're going on automatic.
I'm kind of feeling like I don't mind being open with the random details of my life, like I'm at a coffee shop or my toe hurts or something, but obviously other more personal areas of life where I will just never really go there.
I am not doctor who and I can't turn back time. I once said the audience was all punks and little girls, now they are old punks and old little girls. I don't mind the fans being maturer, if there are younger fans that's good too.
When I did it, I was a starving musician in London in a basement flat, but a simple tune with the right singer or the right situation can become very well liked and accepted. I'm only too pleased to say it happened with that one.
There's two facets to writing a song. There's you sitting in your room writing the sentiments of the song; the lyrics, the melody and the changes, and then there's the part where you go into the studio and you put clothing on it.
As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that's what I do, too.
I've always considered transcribing to be an invaluable tool in the development of one's musical ear and, over the years, I have spent countless glorious hours transcribing different kinds of music, either guitar-oriented or not.
I have this theory about us. When we started writing our own songs, we were 17 years old. When you're 17, you write songs for other 17-year-olds. We stopped growing musically when we were 17. We still write songs for 17-year-olds.
I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets, how they've used, tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there.
Whatever the opposite of regret is best describes how I've always felt about that decision - it opened me up to a million creative opportunities I needed to experience away from the bull and distorting mirrors that fame engenders.
If you feel driven and compelled to make your work and to be fiercely original and have something unique to say, in a compelling way, then chances are the helpers will be there for you the doors will open some, the ice will crack.
Somebody under 30, if the name Frank Zappa came up, they would just say, "Who?" To me that didn't sit well, because I felt my dad's accomplishments in music should be better known, not just in a popular way, but better understood.
I think music changed when Bruce Springstee came on the scene. I think if it wasn't for Bruce Springstee, music would have gone in a very scary direction. We may have gotten to where disco music ruled - and I would've had to quit.
The bottom line is fans just want to hear a good song. Some people will look underneath to see who wrote it, but they just want to hear a good song. And if they don't hear it, they're not going to buy it just because you wrote it.
The music is a personal expression, like art. It is something that you like doing that comes from within, and is an expression that comes from God. That is why artists are beautiful and why people who copy are not really artistic.
I play with feeling so I need to hear what is coming out of the amplifier to inspire me; I don't just play mechanically. I need to hear what I am doing in order to create the next note. If I don't hear it then I can't feed myself.
I'd never really travelled before, and when we started going places, like Japan, France, Germany and all over Europe, it's been interesting to see how different cultures work. But to be there playing music makes it so much better.
Just like there's a hole in the ozone layer, there's a hole in the musical ecological layer [wrt lack of successful "conscious" music]... 'Traditional' music was brand new at one time... When you hear R&B today, do you believe it?
Every guitarist I would cross paths with would tell me that I should have a flashy guitar, whatever the latest fashion model was, and I used to say, 'Why? Mine works, doesn't it? It's a piece of wood and six strings, and it works.'
As a kid, you're like, 'Do they have Preakness everywhere or just in Maryland?' You hear people talking about it, and it was like, 'Oh, everyone goes there to hang out and party.' I didn't even know it was a race until I got older.
I think the one-on-one gigs connecting with the fans - is the most important thing. That will help build your fan base. They'll talk about you, and word spreads. Those things are just as important as knowing how to play an E chord.
Berry's On Top is probably my favorite record of all time; it defines rock and roll. A lot of people have done Chuck Berry songs, but to get that feel is really hard. It's the rock and roll thing-the push-pull and the rhythm of it.
I do think there is a valid reason that Segovia commissioned the composers he did. He was very much a pioneer, and what he wanted was a very listenable repertory. But I'm interested in different aspects of the guitar, and of music.
With 'More Than Words,' we wrote that, so we are that. I'm just happy people can connect with any of our songs. If that song opened the floodgates for us to be able to tour the world over and over, how could I be unhappy with that?
When I was a kid, I liked the newer music that was coming out. I have never really felt confined by any style of music. I would play in bands that were soul bands or that played standards - any kind of music that I enjoyed playing.
Just the whole thing of getting up in the morning - I love the sunshine, I love the palm trees. I'm that kind of guy. I like to drive around with the top down and just enjoy life. I never did that before, so it's a beautiful thing.
I grew up with rock and pop music from the 70s and 80s. I had to play guitar in school - it was a music college and we had to take instrument classes there - so I think guitar playing and guitar sounds have always been an influence.
One thing I can say about our band is this. If you got something good to lay on us, enlighten us, but if you got something bad to lay on us, you can get your teeth knocked clean down your throat man. Dangerous people. Lovely people.
It took us two years to get our first real gig. That was a big dream. We ended up booking a lot of our own gigs and putting on a lot of our own shows. We were trying to get our actual music across, trying to make a connection there.
I don't know if people know this about me, but I'm into Billy Joel. I'm a huge fan of his and always have been. He's just a quintessential songwriter of our time. Talk about a storied career - so many classic songs and great albums.
Whenever I'd go anywhere with my dad - in his 1980 burgundy Dodge Ram - he'd always listen to mix tapes of country-music stars like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Willie Nelson. Those were the first songs I ever learned the words to.
The real estate agent had to go door-to-door in the apartment building we wanted to rent, asking if it was OK for this interracial family - my mom is white and I was a 1-year-old half-African kid - to live in the apartment building.
What I do know is rock and roll and metal never goes away, ever. It took the back seat in America in the '90s. In Japan and South America, it was still really big. I never followed trends, so I don't know the exact function of them.
I emigrated to the U.S. on February 3, 1983, when I was 19 years old. I joined Steeler right away and recorded the album the following month. I'd been playing in bands in Sweden since the age of 11, but 'Steeler' was my first album.
We were really interested in music from all over the world. We realized that what we were doing was very close to contemporary classical music because of the lack of tonality in the guitar- the fact that I play guitar the way I play.
Personally, I've found one of the more stimulating ways of playing in recent times has been to kind of move outside the free improvised area and work with people who are probably improvisers but they have a particular way of working.