Quotes About Music

Every record store and record chain has folded; they don't exist. They do not exist. And the only two outlets that would still sell CDs were Best Buy and Wal-Mart. They now have stopped selling it. There's nowhere you can go into a store and buy a CD in America. That's how it is.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and 'clean' versions be made for them to carry.

It's shocking to me that it's easier to buy a gun at Wal-Mart than it is to buy my record.

I did once shatter a chandelier. I was singing with my college choir in Wales. I was the soloist and I hit the high note and there was this massive bang and all this glass came down from the ceiling. I'd like that to be my party trick if I can perfect it.

To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but, with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed.

When I was 9, I was into T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Alice Cooper. I knew The Beatles because my nan introduced me to them, but T. Rex was the first band I got into myself. I got 'Metal Guru' a few months after hearing 'Children of the Revolution' in Pwllheli in North Wales at a market.

When I was in Cardiff, playing with the National Orchestra of Wales, they said they get letters from people complaining if they're smiling during the concert. Nuts, isn't it? As if you have to respect the solemnity of the music by not smiling. Music is this joyful thing that enriches our lives, and you're not supposed to smile?

I started singing because I come from Wales.

I maintain that when I finally retire from my career in music, I will go and live back in Wales - when I am an old person, if I live to be an old person. The water I miss, and the air, there's something different about it. And I miss the simple life.

I have the same feeling when I walk in a very beautiful place that I have when I play and it goes right.

Music's not like becoming a doctor, who can walk into a community and find people who need him.

I have more energy at the end than I do at the beginning. You can be so beat up that you can scarcely walk on stage but when you get to the piano the excitement kicks in, you forget about being tired.

I collect records. And cats. I don't have any cats right now. But if I'm taking a walk and I see a cat, I'm happy.

'The Taxi Ride,' from my second album, is one people want to hear a lot. I'm consciously trying to walk on the sunny side of the street, to really lift myself into a place of greater positivity, and that's a sad song.

I think I could walk into any music shop anywhere and with a guitar off the rack, a couple of basic pedals and an amp I could sound just like me. There's no devices, customized or otherwise, that give me my sound.

Growing up, I was so inspired by front men like Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, and Kurt Cobain - real showmen that put on 'a performance' every time they walk out on stage - so it's important for me to feel like I deliver that.

I'm one of those very confident people who just forgets about fear and gives it to somebody else. I get into that ring, and I walk round, I hear my music, and then I start buzzing.

For me, if I saw my favorite artist in the store, I would probably just tell them three words and walk away.

Musicians are all about celebrity first and foremost, and I just can't do it. The second any sort of popularity contest comes into the picture, I have to walk in the other direction. These people are sociopaths.

I like to separate the music- and lyric-writing processes if I can. I'll sort of noodle around on my keyboard and my computer until I have a beat or a chord progression, I'll record it as a loop, export it to iTunes, then walk around with the loop and sort of talk to myself in the loop, and that's how I get the lyrics.

I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.

I'm one of those people that to be a singer you can just walk around the house and sing, you don't have to be in a studio or on a stage.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.