Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Anyone who knows music knows that Neil is about as real as it can get, and this along with seeing him perform 'Harvest Moon' on 'SNL' was my first experience knowing what real music really felt like.
I think I was annoyed going through the '90s just as a guy who loves music. There wasn't a lot of music for me. Everything was groove driven. We lost the plot with the melody. There's no more melody.
I'm about caring, I'm about people, and I'm about entertaining people. I'm a family man. A husband. A father. I've been a lot of other things over the years, which we don't really want to talk about.
I always felt like my future was at stake every time I stepped on stage and that was kind of hair-raising. At some point I just went, don't be frightened, you can't do anything wrong, it's your show.
If you really want to be part of something and you have that much passion towards it, you'll know enough to research it and find the history of it; and history is so important, history is everything.
Led Zeppelin, they still rule the airwaves. I hear Zeppelin every day, and they've been around since '69. So the people who grew up with that still listen to that, and now their children listen to it.
I think my intention was there, and my love for the music was apparent. And there are very few singers who get up and desire to take the kinds of risks that jazz musicians routinely need to be taking.
Music, Rock and Roll music especially, is such a generational thing. Each generation must have their own music, I had my own in my generation, you have yours, everyone I know has their own generation.
While there are so many beautiful Baroque churches and it's a beautiful artistic tradition, it almost gets hideous and grotesque if you push it further. You can take something beautiful and overdo it.
This music has been around since before the beard on Moses. I happed to do it very well and I happen to have a lot of groovy songs that I know people are going to dig. I know more about it than you do.
After the Ed Sullivan Show, Feb. 9, 1964, at approx. 8:04pm [laughs], after that moment every album, every guitar, evey set of drums that was ever sold ... 10% should have gone right into their pocket!
My father had a couple of Mitch Miller records and a Spike Jones record, and that was it. My older brother had two or three Elvis Presley singles, and that was about it. The rest of it I did on my own.
I've tried to avoid the rock & roll highway and have taken the scenic route. I think all the guys have been more concerned with the music and the band's legacy than with the commercial aspects of life.
I got really hooked on this riff in the middle of this song called 'Minor Miracles' by my friend Eric Johnson from Fruit Bats. I got the tracks for that from him, and that turned into 'Here in Spirit.'
I'm kind of crazy with karma. I really believe that everything you do revisits you, so, I'm really adamant about the kids seeing the grandparents, so like, I can see my grandkids, you know what I mean?
My manager was Buddy Glee, who put me together with Mike Curb, and was basically the idea to bring some soul to the label and bring something different to the label besides the Hank Williams situation.
There's the idea that you have to know how to solve the world's problems in order to feel that something is morally wrong. I'm always back and forth between optimism and depression about the situation.
That's something - you laugh about Eminem... It's funny, man, because I didn't like him when he first came out, ya know. It seemed like a big joke. But I think the guy's for real, and I like his lyrics!
'It Still Moves' is really the only record in our catalog that I've always felt I wanted to remix. Part of the fun of that record was that we recorded it all to tape, and it was all super-duper organic.
I'm working with a producer, Scott Jacoby, who co-wrote "Trouble" off No Beginning No End. Without giving away too much, it's a definite pop/r&b vibe, pretty strong melodies, and definitely about songs.
I believe that people would be happier sharing things and being much more of a collective rather than working from these neo-liberal ideas of just looking after yourself. I think people need each other.
Chanting is a way of getting in touch with yourself. It's an opening of the heart and letting go of the mind and thoughts. It deepens the channel of grace, and it's a way of being present in the moment.
You don't show respect to Frank Sinatra and his great example by trying to sound exactly like him. You show it by sounding exactly like you, and that's the way jazz has always progressed as an art form.
As I look back, I understand what [the record company] was getting at. They were trying to market a record and make it as commercially acceptable as possible. It hurt me and my credibility with critics.
When I was a practicing alcoholic, I was unbelievable. One side effect was immense suspicion: I'd come off tour like Inspector Clouseau on acid. 'Where's this cornflake come from? It wasn't here before.
If you feel stuck, bring your whole self to Christ, not just the problem, but you. Ask God to change your heart. Commit yourself to pray to that end. It's God's heart to give good gifts to His children.
My favorite English teacher in high school showed me 'Brazil' when I was 15 and it blew my mind. It's one of those movies that's revealed itself in different ways as I've gone back to it over the years.
I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
I hate categories. Hank Williams is a great artist, period. Bob Dylan is a great artist, so is Marty Robbins. They just classify these people and put them in categories so they can sell the thing easier.
For me, 'Evil Urges' was like a video game. If you play 'Super Mario Brothers,' there's a level where it's like a snowscape, and then there's a level where it's a desert and a level that's like a jungle.
It is true [the risk for travel is greater] for we now operate in a global market. Business travelers are conducting business all over the world as if they are conducting business in their own backyards.
I want to be around for a long time. I want this to be a career. I want to sing like Tony Bennett. I want to be an old man and I want to go through all the ups and downs and I wanna still love what I do.
Record companies worrying more about market share than developing artists - I hear there was a time when if your first record didn't sell 8m copies, you were still given a chance to grow as a songwriter.
I didn't want to make a record that's just drones or completely experimental. A lot of the time bands that make this psychedelic style of music are just a bunch of dudes hanging out together and jamming.
My favorite English teacher in high school showed me 'Brazil' when I was 15, and it blew my mind. It's one of those movies that's revealed itself in different ways as I've gone back to it over the years.
I feel like modern country is deliberately dumbing down the human race. They're deliberately making people take glory in being uneducated and racist, and it's just sad. I think it's absolute mind control.
This is why I wanted to be different and why I wanted to have power and fame and money: because I wanted to be attractive to the opposite sex. I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that was a big part of it
Ten thousand million nightmares, temptation by the score, I used to get so high, and still I wanted more. You think my time is wasted in search of who I am, I tried so hard to kill the boy inside the man.
I was always apologizing for yesterday's behavior and I got tired of it. I feel it's good being straight. As I did when I first got high. It's a high to be straight because I was getting loaded every day.
Years ago, in order to stay sane, I had to really make an effort not to think about how people view us. There's just so much noise, positive and negative, and not much good comes out of thinking about it.
I don't think it is too good especially with music to worry about authenticity, it can get in the way of doing something which comes naturally from your own head which is the most authentic thing [of all].
I once wrote a song called 'No Laughing in Heaven,' which was about not wanting to go to Heaven due to the company I'd be keeping, and with a few exceptions, the Hall of Fame is pretty much the same thing.
This is why I wanted to be different and why I wanted to have power and fame and money: because I wanted to be attractive to the opposite sex. I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that was a big part of it.
The goths are beautiful, a vast depth of subcultural, aesthetic and poetic ideas, and we would identify with that as we did back in 1979. But not the post modern distortion...the costume without the brain.
When I left Van Halen, I went in the studio and made a CD called Marching to Mars with all studio musicians. I did it immediately. With the disappointment riding on my shoulders of the breakup of the band.
I studied scriptural interpretation, which is more about how people get meaning out of texts, looking at stuff in the Old Testament - Muslims, Christians, Jews, different interpretations of the same texts.
That's what so sad about a lot of modern music, in my opinion, so many young bands never stay around long enough to fulfill their ultimate promise. They only get halfway there or a quarter of the way there.
When I'm on stage by myself, I don't have to think about anything. I don't have to worry about anything because I'm not responsible for anything except just opening my mouth and making sure music comes out.
Homophobia is easier for black people where black people are concerned. They feel they have the right to correct me on my behavior. There is this notion that homosexuality is something that white people do.
The thing I take great comfort in and what I think is cool about the process is that I know in my heart that I gave it everything I had back then. That helps me sleep at night. I still feel proud and happy.