Quotes About Authenticity

I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.

A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.

Tried living in the real world instead of a shell, but I was bored before I even began.

Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.

No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood. One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone.

The songs are inspired by my experiences. Sometimes they are more than my real-life and, conversely, my life is more than just my songs.

The most important things are that you are honest with yourself and that making music comes from your heart

The songs that I like are the ones that you can't visualize, that are just cries from the heart - those very straight, direct songs that make rock & roll music so wonderful.

Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof.

People think I take some sort of masochistic pleasure out of putting out music that's gonna be unpopular.

See, I have a different type of music from other peoples. They playing the other kind of blues, and I'm playing cotton-patch blues.... Ain't nobody now can play the blues that I play.

I would describe my music and my sound as… Avril Lavigne!

Music is the one thing in which there is no use trying to deceive others or make false pretenses.

Rock'n'roll is not red carpets and MySpace friends, rock'n'roll is dangerous and should piss people off

Style as a concept has been hijacked to mean elite, refined and expensive when it should be thought of as a basic expression of life in much the same way as we all identify with music or speech.

I'm certain that I will be able to do music that's more like me as I get to know more about myself. I think that is an artist's fate. You have to keep trying to find your own world and express it.

I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always Michael Jackson for them to listen to.

If you're not inspired and you're working hard to pull inspiration from somewhere and make a song something it's not, then it's very contrived and I don't like to write music that's contrived.

The way I make music is unique to myself and the way I have lived my life - no one else would tell that story in the same way that I do.

The problem is the following, black music is increasing encumbered by white elements, often pleasant but always superfluous, easily and advantageously replaced with black elements.

True country music is honesty, sincerity, and real life to the hilt.

I've never written one note or word of music simply because I think it will make money.

Johnny Rotten isn't punk. Maybe that's punk to somebody, but these people are participating and challenging the corporations that are telling us what punk is and what good music is.

I love making music and all that, but at the end of the day I don't think that's what people are going to remember about a person.