Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If I stand there, appreciating the world around me as full of amazing sounds and the possibility of new ones, I think that invites other people to see the world that way, too. I love sharing the experience of singing with people, and I love sharing my stories. But when it comes to teaching, I have a lot of help.
Life's not so rocky now. It was very volatile when you're young: you've got no experience. Your sense of disappointment is far greater; your sense of success is overwhelming. And then you've got the emotional conflict within any group that you're not mature enough to deal with until you get older. It levels out.
I had a hole in my voice. I still do. We call it a hole, but it's an area in the voice where it's air. And my classical teachers were just so frustrated with me because I would have these deep, low notes that were really strong, and the higher register was strong, but right in the middle area, it was really hard.
Whenever we come back from another project, we're always so stoked to see each other and play with each other again. I really feel like that's been the key to why we're still together as a band. I remember a period five or six years ago feeling a little burnt out and wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep doing it.
I think maybe the vehicle for me was 'Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits.' It has a song called, 'Touch the Hem of His Garment.' Do you know that song? I kind of got obsessed with that song and started exploring and getting more of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers and really getting into that super, super deeply.
There was no way I was ever going to get a fair shake. How good could I be? I was Canadian. I wasn't from New York. I wasn't from Vegas. I was born in 1975, not 1917. My last name wasn't Sinatra or Darin or Martin. Early on and often, there was always the comparison. "He's good, but he's no '[fill in the] blank.'
I was probably five years old or four years and I would listen to "White Christmas," and I just thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. The musicianship and his voice and the melody of that song; it's almost like I wish it wasn't a Christmas song because I wish that you were allowed to listen to it all year.
This is pop music. You've got a candidate for president of the United States using it, that's hitting the biggest audience you're ever going to hit in your entire friggin' life. And you don't want that? Bullshit. That's what you want. It's not even for success or fortune, it's because that's the power of the song.
James Joyce's English was based on the rhythm of the Irish language. He wrote things that shocked English language speakers but he was thinking in Gaelic. I've sung songs that if they were in English, would have been banned too. The psyche of the Irish language is completely different to the English-speaking world.
I was in a band called Episode Six with Roger Glover, which was more of a harmony band, really. At one gig, there were a few dodgy characters leaning up against the wall of the venue - and we ended up joining their band. Purple was the talk of every musician in the country - they had something new and very exciting.
I try not to "perform." I try to come on stage and be myself, to sing the way I would in a room by myself, to interact with the audience the way I would relate to them if we were in my kitchen drinking tea and making up silly songs. Maybe the way to get past the fear of being ourselves is simply to try it more often.
With 'Love Shack,' once we put that chorus in, it did have more of a song structure. Even though the verses are all kind of different, the chorus was there along with 'The Love Shack' - I think that really made it a hit. Once we heard it in the studio, we played it for R.E.M., and they were like, 'Yes this is a hit.'
I feel it's such a tragic thing [Kurt Cobain's suicide]. Here is a guy, a young guy, that had everything in his hands. He could have had a great life. He had a wife, he had a child, he had a fantastic career. He was important to a generation. And for him to do that - I didn't like that. I thought that was just wrong.
'Smoke On The Water' was ignored by everybody to begin with. We only did it in the shows because it was a filler track from 'Machine Head.' But then, one radio station picked up on it, and Warner Bros. edited it down to about three and a half minutes. It then started getting played by lots of different radio stations.
We are so programmed to feel that our emotions are the most important thing in the Universe...We write, produce and act in the story of me. And then we write reviews - and read them and get more depressed. All we can do is let go, and that comes from training. And then we spend less and less time in the darker spaces.
Can't you tell when you're with someone who's listening? She hears you, really hears you. He hears the sadness in your tone or catches your joy. Be a listener, to music, to life, to others, to God. Life is noisy, but there is music in every heartbeat. God is waiting to bring joy and peace to the confusion of our days.
I don't think we're totally responsible. But you know, all the bands said it, that we did. Even Courtney Love said that. Anyway, Courtney called her band Hole, get it? Slits? Hole? So it's pretty clear we were an influence on all of them, but I'm not really sure how far it goes. I was on a different planet at the time.
I really pulled from that repertoire that Billie Holiday was singing, and the way she sang it. It's sort of this beautiful, not really midpoint, but a period of her career where she really still had her voice. She had that deep wisdom that we've come to associate her with. To me, that's her at the height of her powers.
My hand landed on a rock, and the gnome landed on it, squashing my thumb between the rock and the gnome. Basically, it was crushed and took the end of my thumb off. I just looked at my hand, and the first thought that flashed into my mind was, 'How on earth am I going to make my devil horn sign now? That's my trademark!'
Well a good writer writes, a good musician listens to a lot more than he actually composes, and if you're going to do lyrics - well, there's a Freudian slip. That's not even a slip, that's a Freudian move: I said going to do lyrics. If you really want it to ring true, you'll live it first. Go really get your heart broken!
If anything, I feel that the current generation of listeners of heavy music are progressing a bit passed their gateway bands and are digging deeper than they used to and understanding more abrasive and complex music and art. It's like being around an unfamiliar language long enough that it eventually begins to make sense.
Jason [Moran] and John [Patitucci] and Eric [Harland] knew it was a Billie Holiday tribute. I'm sure they assumed it was going to be like another singer date, where we just have a bunch of charts and they write them down and they got paid and kind of moved on. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I intended.
People with talent are not interested in showing off behind another person. They're more interested in the music. [Charlie Parker] was playing with me. That's the difference between the kind of musician I like to work with and singing with a musician who thinks he has to accompany me. That is so annoying I cannot tell you.
For me, changing the sound and listening to new music - that's just so fun. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You're never going to please everybody. I feel that at the end of the day, I should make what I want to make since somebody is going to hate it and somebody is going to love it too. I can't control that.
Big religion was started with one goal in mind: to make money. And I'm not knocking anyone's faith, because I think there are a lot of good values to be found in any faith. But when any faith starts to get in the way of love, that's where you can tell that greed and fear have stepped in and that those things come from man.
We were always told we were one step behind Deep Purple, one step behind Led Zeppelin, one step behind everybody. Our manager didn't want to let us know how popular we were. It's only after we did Ozzfest that people started telling me stuff. I thought they were taking the piss. People would come up to me and go, "Respect."
Eventually, the more I listened and became obsessed with singers, I feel like the more I realized that I had my own little thing that I could do. So this is why I just became obsessed with looking for new singers, unknown singers, people that maybe have been forgotten, and really checking them out and analyzing what they do.
I grew up having to piss in a bucket ’cos there was no indoor shitter, and now I have these computerised Japanese super-loo things that have heated seats and wash and blow-dry your arse at the touch of a button. Give it a couple of years and I’ll have a bog with a robot arm that pulls out my turds, so I don’t have to strain.
I always find live shows on film kind of boring. Even my favorite ones, I kinda zone out for most of it. It's just so different seeing a band in the flesh and then watching a film of it, even if you have a hundred cameras and it's shot from every angle. There's just a communal, visceral thing that never translates very well.
As you get older you will gain a bit more control over everything. Don't let anyone, even your parents, break you. Find good people who care about you and surround yourself with just them. If you can't find them at first, find good music and fall into it, let it hold you until they come. I truly hope you enjoy the new record.
What's missing is the testosterone. What's missing is the fury. What's missing is the passionate convicted commitment. And I got a lot of mine from my religious background. So y'all best stop imagining the way Dr. Zorba looked, or some defenseless Hasidic Jew with a little yarmulke on his head, 'cause that ain't here for you.
There's a more experimental album that follows that, which is like Black Magic and While You Were Sleeping. Then there's a return to jazz, For All We Know and Yesterday I Sang The Blues. It wasn't like a planned thing, I just kind of realized it when I made a list of my albums. Like, oh wow, this is exactly what I did before.
I had to come out on stage with my little staff and robe and I had this sun on top of my head that my mom made - that was the first time I was ever on stage singing in front of anybody. I realized that I was one of the best acts of the night but I didn't give singing much thought after that. I was really into playing baseball.
Whenever I'm talking about relationships, it's always at least three things. It's my relationship with myself, my relationship with God or an idea, and then usually somebody, a real person. I try to operate on all three levels at the same time, and it's difficult, but I never want to have a break-up song or something like that.
I feel like there isn't as much mystery to music anymore. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. There definitely is no seperation anymore. Your connection with your fans is like two clicks away on a phone with a Twitter or a blog. I think that's a good thing. It's a new music industry. You're really connected with your fans.
I'm a man that's unique to the world. That's kind of the star I was born under - on the cusp of Capricorn and Aquarius. My mother is Irish-American, and my father is Afro-Panamanian, so it's kind of been the story of my life to be a bridge between different cultures and different styles, and musically, that's between jazz and R&B.
I think I have to work to write a happy song. I write them carefully; they're simple and they're about when it's fun to walk down the street. You know? Because that's the best thing about when you're happy. It's just one little thing that makes you happy, and you're making friends. The kind of thing I can do is capture this moment.
When we start talking about gurus, first of all we're starting to talk about something that can't be talked about, in the sense that you can never really know what a guru is as long as you are imprisoned by your own thoughts and circular ego. The true guru is someone who's transcended all that. And we don't know anything about that.
You want to know if we're animals? When I'm on stage with the volume rippling my body like a glass of water and thousands of people are generating heat in my direction, there's no time for thought. My basement facilities take over completely. Sure it's animal. People might like to talk about art, but look where art is, in the gutter.
My dad was born in Haiti, and my mom was born in Tunisia. She is the daughter of a white French woman and a black, half-Guadeloupian, half-American man. My mom traveled the world a lot. She went through Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. She just got to experience a lot of different cultures, and that came through my childhood.
When we were doing noisier shows, they were fun, but we were trying to be really obnoxious and it wasn't like we were trying to make good music. I mean, I'm happier when we have smoothed out a little bit. I think that the spirit of the noise and experimental stuff is still there, but it's easier to do when you're a freshman in college.
Remembering that life can be full of surprises is useful in any part of your life. You can try a new way of singing a song you’ve performed for years, a new way of showing your family your love for them, or a new recipe. Don’t just play the licks you know. We’re all improvising all the time — it’s good to recognize that and embrace it.
Well, John Doherty's playing was very unique. He bowed a lot and used staccato, while I slur a bit. I bow a lot as well, but I do a bit of playing a few notes with the one bow. As you go south there's more slurring with the bow. As you go north there's more bowing every note. But sometimes you get the combination of the two in Donegal.
I think I began getting really influenced by that whole punk scene around the age of 13 or 14-I went through that whole thing like the shaved head. I was always interested in what people called "the darker side," whatever that was, and the kind of look that you would see in the old horror films. So I let that become more of my persona.
This is what I want everyone to experience at the end of my concert... everyone has this sense of rejoicing. I don't want them to be blown away by what I do, I want them to have this sense of real, real joy from the depths of their being. Because I think when you take them to that place, then you open up a place where grace can come in.
That's why you put out records: hoping that people will connect with them. I mean, I play music for myself, for sure, and I would still play music even if people didn't like it. But it means a lot when it connects to people and they enjoy it. But it's funny: you get criticism as much as you get praise. It kind of evens out after awhile.
I was named on the worst-dressed list at the Grammys a couple of years ago. I had on Tom Ford, and I thought it was the most amazing dress ever. But I got put on the worst-dressed list. Luckily, at least I was pictured alongside Adele, J-Lo, and whoever - all these superstars who were also called worst-dressed - so that was a good thing!
I was so lucky. I had a dad and a mom that loved me and my sisters so much. My Uncle Mike and Uncle Frank were married. They must be together for fortysomething years now. Long story short, there was never any stigma attached to that. At the youngest age, I remember my dad saying, "Sometimes men love men and women love women. It's nature.
In Poland, the whole saying is, 'You've got one eye to Morocco and the other to the Caucasus.' That's the heart of the culture. In England, they say it less romantic: 'You've got a wandering eye.' The saying means my main stream in life must be Deep Purple. That's my main job. Then every now, and I can wander off and have one eye to Morocco.
It's not the '80s any more. We're not all riding around in limousines and snorting coke off of hookers' tits. We still have to keep working and touring. We're definitely still very much a working band. If we stopped doing this tomorrow, we'd have a little bit of cash to last us a couple of months, and then we'd have to go and get other jobs.