Quotes from Mayer Hawthorne

I think that what happens is that all of my modern influences blend together with the older soul influences and you get Mayer Hawthorne.

When you're a soul singer, I'm singing a lot of songs about love and relationships that I think a lot of girls really relate to. For whatever reason, that seems to get 'em excited. The DJ, everyone always says the DJ gets all the chicks, but that's never been my experience.

I've been through a lot of situations with women and if I can help someone else avoid the pitfalls that I've gone through then I'm happy to help.

I love doing things that people don't expect.

Hip-hop was my first real love, one that was my own and wasn't my parents' music. Initially, I was inspired by hip-hop fashion. Over the years, I kept the hip-hop sensibility, but make it my own.

I never have, but I would love to pick R. Kelly's brain.

I learn the most from trial and error. I learn about what I'd like to be able to do from people like Barbara Mason. Saying I want to sing like Barbara Mason and doing it, it's two very different scenarios.

Drums, bass, guitar, keys, I play a little of each of those.

I've been DJing since before I could read the labels on the records.

People will send me tweets or texts, 'Yo, I'm at Red Lobster now and they're playing Mayer Hawthorne,' more of that kind of stuff, which is hilarious.

I make soul music for hip-hop heads. It's music I'd want to sample if I were a rapper.

My dad calls me 'Mac' a lot, from 'Mike Tyson's Punch Out' - Little Mac is the main character. I was obsessed. I can still beat Mike Tyson on 'Punch Out.'

Marvin Gaye was the ultimate ladies' man and a big part of that was the way he dressed. If you're having trouble getting ladies, step your suit game up and see the difference. Walk into a bar in a tailored suit and I guarantee every girl will check you out.

I didn't appreciate Mick Jagger until I got older, and mainly because of the Mick Jagger swagger. He defined that for the world. He was bold and adventurous with it, too - just the ultimate rock star.

Man, I have so many names that everybody calls me something different. Some people call me Drew, some people call me Mayer, some people call me Haircut.

Gary Numan had a huge influence on both my music and my style. He had his own unique fashion sense - that futuristic space style. It was out there.

Nowhere on earth has more soul than Detroit.

My intentions with any of my music is to keep it futuristic and updated and be experimental and try new things.

I DJ all the time, as much as I possibly can. I'll never stop. That's my security blanket, that's what I'm good at. I still consider myself a better DJ than a singer. I can DJ in my sleep.

With any cover, I like to choose songs that affected me strongly already. So it's tough sometimes to take a song that you love so much and put your own spin on it because you get such a strong feeling from the original.

Even when I was a hip-hop DJ I always kept it classy. The motto is always 'flashy but classy.' You've got to be original and stand out from the crowd and take some chances. But you've always got to keep it classy.

I shopped at J. Crew in high school, I studied computer science. I was a nerd-nerd, now I'm a music-nerd.

I'm a serious student of music, a perfectionist in the studio, and I take the arrangement and production of it very seriously, down to the mixing and mastering even. But at the same time I'm having so much fun with it. I try not to take myself so seriously.

I really don't care at all what people call me as long as they're listening to the music and talking about it. They can call me a space-jazz flautist. I don't care at all.