Quotes About Music

I think I have great responsibility, and when I do my music, when I try to relate to my audience, I just try to do it in an honest fashion, you know, just try to be as earnest as possible and sometime it may be self-effacing. Sometimes it may be finger-pointing. Sometimes it may be beautiful, and sometime it may be ugly.

In 'Charade,' there was a big fight. George Kennedy was playing one of his first big heavy roles; he had a hook for a hand, and he was real ugly. Cary Grant was Cary Grant. They were on a slanted roof, a very exciting fight, and we agreed there shouldn't be any music, just the grunts and the action.

I made a point when I made the Ugly Casanova record to not write a song and then say, 'This is a Modest Mouse song' or 'This is an Ugly Casanova song.' The people who were open to it not being a Modest Mouse record liked it.

Getting back to the point, a guy like Jerry, he deals with the business, and he doesn't see it as being evil or ugly, it's what you have to do, and I mean I know there's some really ugly parts to it and parts which drive me nuts, but not in the same way as music business.

You can't listen to what people who aren't musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don't want to hear, 'Your kid is ugly.' But I knew the record was good and it would sell.

My songs are my stories... good, bad, ugly, beautiful.

Success came to me in my late 20s. I started touring when I was a teenager, so I had already seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the music business. Plus, setting up my own record company taught me a lot.

I love Billy Joel's music, but let's put it this way - I think this is a frustrated, ugly man.

To me, you had to have a least a couple of ugly guys in the band. That's why Saxon was great.

Every once in a while there's a day or two when I say, 'Gee, electric guitars, what an ugly sound.' But I'm a very enthusiastic person. For sure I'm an excitable, fun-loving person. I enjoy life.

Life has highs, lows, loud and quiet moments, beautiful ones and ugly ones. Music is a reflection of life.

The UK has no input in Afrobeat. Let me make myself very clear. The UK has no influence in the creation or naming or anything that has to do with Afrobeat' roots or beginnings.

We've had a number 1 album in the UK and that was a really big thing for me. So now all we've got to do is do it in America and that will have the domino effect of doing it across the rest of the world.

I pretty much grew up when punk was big in the UK. The Sex Pistols were heroes for me. I used to run around like Johnny Rotten. I had a jacket like his.

We didn't really expect to achieve anything outside of the UK, and it just went crazy. It's just crazy that people know our music. We're just humbled by it.

We have such a high drop-out rate from musicians, said the head of the college. He was right - I dropped out before I even dropped in. Months later they were still asking what had happened to me, not realising that I was on a UK tour.

The record was only released in the UK, and then when the idea for the remixed album came about, which was an idea that I've had for the longest time, I said this would be great song to remix as well, and so we did it.

I also hope that with the assistance and expertise of Dome Records, that I will be able to further pierce the UK and European market. I really like playing there and I want to do more! I've found that the audiences get quite involved and really listen to what's happening.

There's quite a stigma attached to country music in the UK - but I kind of enjoy that.

When writing music for the 'Kaddish,' I evoked the prayers that were sung in Eastern Galicia, Ukraine and Romania. I was advised by my late friend, Boris Carmeli... He would sing me various melodies that were sung by his grandfather, thus they had to be at least as old as the mid-19th century.

I've become a ukulele hoarder.

I play the ukulele. Is that quirky?

I like to play the ukulele, but I'm not, like, awesome at it. I mostly play the piano and the guitar.

I play piano and ukulele, and I taught myself those things just because I wanted to play them.