Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What's nice about Twitter is that you've got that point of contact with your fans that artists have never had before. I think it's good for musicians. Just as long as you don't start tweeting things about your girlfriends or boyfriends - there's got to be a line.
I'm interested in things when I don't know what they are. Like "Hey, Ray, what the hell is this?" Oh, that's lipstick from the 1700s, that's dog food from the turn of the century, that's a hat from World War II. I'm interested in the minutiae of things. Oddities.
When I return to the writing process after being away from it for a while, the first part of it always is being honest with myself: What am I into right now? Is it rock bands and guitars, is it noise, is it dance beats and electronics? Is it space, is it clutter?
I don't want to read more into it than there is. I try not to overanalyze anymore, as it tends to make me self-centered. If there is a deeper message in what happened in the last year and a half, I'm not going to look under every rock for it. Just let God be God.
When you believe in God, you've got to believe in the all-powerful God. He's not just God, He's the all-powerful God and He has total control over everyone's life. The Devil, on the other hand, is a real character that's trying his hardest to tear your life apart.
You just let your lower self go, and then it takes on all these aspects of the society - the city with horns blowing, the people yelling things at each other, and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music, and that's what this is.
Well, there are two kinds of happiness, grounded and ungrounded. Ungrounded happiness is cheesy and not based on reality. Grounded happiness is informed happiness based on the knowledge that the world sometimes sucks, but even then you have to believe in yourself.
We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.
Musically, I actually grew up listening to country music as a kid, like George Strait, Alan Jackson... all those guys. So it was kind of weird crossing over from that to pop and R&B, but you know, I love Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, Usher, R. Kelly, Drake, Boyz II Men.
I'm part of this show called "Shots Fired" that is premiering on FOX. It's right after the Super Bowl. It's a pretty incredible show. I'm pretty much the voice of the show, so the voice of the opening credit record and the songs in between is pretty much my voice.
I'm standing at a crossroads. I'm not entirely sure what the future holds ... I'm at a crossroads, but it's a little bit different than the crossroads I've been at before because I'm doing what I do because I love it, and doing what I do because it's pure passion.
I certainly have gotten caught up in the music business at various times in my life, mostly because you want to get along with whatever record company you're dealing with. I don't want to be flaky. I don't want to be some temperamental, hard-to-work-with musician.
I live the most boring life, away from what you see me on camera doing. The other 300 days out of the year [not touring], I'm just the most normal person in the universe. I'm a wife. I'm a mother to my doggies. I'm a maid, and I clean the house. I'm pretty boring.
I auditioned [for America's Most Talented Kids] just to see where I would rank. I had been playing [gigs] around town, and I wanted to see what people thought of me because when I played a show, everyone would clap but I didn't know what they were really thinking.
I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.
Everything's stolen. Everything precious - be it a kiss, or be it James Brown - gets misappropriated to the aid of the advertising executives. So, an act of reclamation, somewhere else to be: that's what I want my music to be. Somewhere you can step into. A place.
Back in 2000, I had come to a crossroads in my life, unsure about what career path I should pursue. Shepherd, bouncer, philosopher king, ventriloquist or perhaps man on the flying trapeze. Fortunately, I was guided back onto the path of the magical world of music.
There was a lot of freedom, so bands in those days did not have to play for the public. They played for club owners that enjoyed music. You know, what happened - there was a lot of clubs that had bebop music or different forms of music. It was great for musicians.
[My grandfather] was very, very fortunate that he was never trapped in a mining cave-in. But he lost his brother in a mining disaster on a shift that he wasn't working. And he was in a collapse where his brother-in-law was killed very near him in the same section.
My heroes are all dead. I've lots of heroes. My mum is a hero. She had to put up with me and my dad. She is one of my heroes. Some of my friends are heroes. There are so many. But heroes usually let you down, don't they? There is people I admire, people I respect.
I really disliked the fact that our Irish culture is what make us and made us and will make us. And when money came in, we rejected it so quickly. Not even rejected, we didn't think. We just got lazy and all the girls started getting fat and that's not good is it.
I do think that the abiding mystery of my origins has definitely had a profound effect upon my writing. There is that thing in the back of my mind where I think I don't really know who I am. And it may make it a little easier to shift around in my narrative voice.
When I feel better looking in the mirror, it makes me feel more uplifted. I feel like what that image has been has shifted in different ways, and that's probably why I'm always changing: because I start getting bored, and I don't like feeling locked into anything.
Now I'm a wife and a mother of two. It's a really different role. I always referred to No Doubt as a marriage, because that's what it's like to be together for so long and go through what we've been through. I can't really have that relationship with them anymore.
Why did the little girls grow crippled While the little boys grow strong The boys allowed to come of age The girls just came along The girls were told sing harmonies The boys could all sing songs That's why little girls grew crippled While little boys grew strong.
I want to find someone who's really into something like I'm really into something, so that I can support them and we can both cheer each other on. I've got a lot of dreams I want to achieve, and I hope someone can cheer me on as I'll cheer them on in their dreams.
A lot of people in the media, and some everyday people, really aren't in search of the truth. They're in search of something worse than that. Money, yeah. I think the media's the kind of a thing where the truth doesn't win, because it's no fun. The truth's no fun.
Well you're in your little room and you're working on something good but if it's really good you're gonna need a bigger room and when you're in the bigger room you might not know what to do you might have to think of how you got started sitting in your little room
I write songs on a course of time that's comfortable for me. I would probably never write a song from start to finish in the course of a day, hell probably not even a week. My mind is always going to change and my emotional state will also change on a daily basis.
I know it's financially lucrative to go out on my own, but I don't like it. It's really hard work, just the performance aspect. I like people who look like they've been together for too long and sound like they've been together too long. I like rock n' roll bands.
I'm actually no longer a strict vegan. I don't hang out in the cheese section - I don't even eat cheese. I don't drink milk. But every once in a while I'll have an egg. I'm going to eat eggs that come out of my next-door neighbor's farm, that's just the way it is.
I'm lying in my bed, blanket is warm, this body will never keep me safe from harm. I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal. Touch my skin to keep me whole. If only you'd come back to me. To feel you at my side, wouldn't need no Mojo Pin to keep me satisfied.
I had a brother six years older than me, so I wasn't just listening to teenybopper stuff. My brother had the cooler music, but my parents had the Burt Bacharach, Tom Jones, the Association, the Fifth Dimension; these groups were un-cool, but I secretly loved them.
I do think that it's a challenge for me or for anybody who has had certain iconic things happen to them in their career to re-engage people and say that there's still more to discover. And also to have that confidence in yourself that you still have more to bring.
Every artist wants some sort of feedback, because you make this music and you hope people love it and you want to hear if they love it and what they love about it, what their favorite song is, what they think the next single should be. I like to hear those things.
People like Dick Gregory, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone show me what the definition of an artist is - it isn't just to make art but to speak truth to what's happening, speak beauty into the world, speak love into the world and also... get involved.
I'm probably tougher on myself than I used to be. I'll revise my lyrics more. Part of that is working with the right people and producers who will say, 'How can you make that better?' Allowing yourself to collaborate with people will push you toward transcendence.
And for the past 10 years Ive been in a real commercial setting where people are all about numbers, theyre all about that bottom line. So its nice to step out of that and hang out with a bunch of people who play music just because they love it, as you can imagine.
I don't have a very routine life; the kids' activities, our nightly routines, and morning routines are about as routine as it gets. In the middle of it all - other than my morning coffee, toast, and trying to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night - each day is different.
I'm constantly learning as a songwriter, so naturally that makes you grow as an artist. But I also think the more time I spend in music the more time I feel I understand it; or at least I understand where I stand amongst the industry and my identity within it all.
A frustration that I've had recently is that a lot of songs that I listen to draw on scenarios that aren't very realistic, so I just wanted to do something that was more down to earth. And I think my fans, who already know a lot about me, will learn something new.
I believe that we are at a very low level of consciousness, and we do not know how to treat each other as human beings. We are caught up in our own lives, our own needs, our own ego gratification. I feel a strong sense of responsibility in delivering that message.
I've had fun doing romantic comedies, but I just can't anymore. There's nothing fulfilling creatively, there's nowhere to grow, nothing to learn from it or for yourself. I'd rather just be home with my family or write music until that special project comes my way.
In the inner city, there's a mentality that the government owes you something. My breakthrough came when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took responsibility for every part of my life. No more pity parties. I've gotta love me more than anybody else loves me.
I realized that, all along, my theory was right: Make music that you want to hear, and instead of having fans that one day might criticize or abandon you, your fans aren't even fans. They're people with tastes similar to yours. They're friends you haven't met yet.
I think that I always thought that if my uncle was on Broadway, then I must inherently have a good voice. I don't think that for a while I did. Eventually, out of sheer will of never wanting to get a job or go to college, I found my way into doing music full-time.
I'm very much of that old-school mentality of believing that if it works with an acoustic guitar and a vocal, then it should work within any format - and especially when most of my live work is just guitar and vocals, so it really does have to work with only that.
It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life.
I try to always motivate young kids who want to be singers or actors or whatever it is they want to be that anything is possible with hard work. It doesn't matter where you're from or what language you speak - as long as you work hard, you can achieve those goals.
With some artists, I've noticed that after their songs have been licensed, on their next album you can totally hear they're trying to write a song for 'Grey's Anatomy' and it doesn't work. It's just one of those things that has to feel genuine to last a long time.