Quotes About Music

Generally, I end up being the one thrown against the wall, because Zach is the drummer. He's stronger than me.

When I'm making the music, I feel like everything I throw out has to work. It counts. Because if you don't have people turning they neck all the way around to see what it is, it ain't stick on the wall.

There are plenty of millionaires who would pay millions to hang a Van Gogh painting on the wall, but hardly one that would have ever had the crazy nut over for dinner. I feel like the big companies are like that with musicians. They'll say, 'We love music! It's all about the music!' - but if a musician shows up at the door, they call security.

My music is very personal. I've created it in solitude. I face a white wall and beller. I like that sound - the expression of loneliness. That's what it's all about.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

I inherited this collection of vinyl records, which at that time numbered 6,000, and I've since continued to collect music. As you know, vinyl records can be very heavy, so every time I have to move into a new house, I need to build a complete new wall of shelves to put all these records, which is a nightmare for the architect.

The biggest surprise to people is that I sang background on Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' album.

If I sit down with an electric guitar, what's going to come out are Sabbath/Zeppelin type riffs, but if I'm sitting behind a piano late at night, I might write something like 'Desperado.' You're not going to write 'Desperado' between a wall of Marshalls and thumping, crushing volume.

I love singing, so I want to see how far I can take it. I love the challenge, and I won't be happy until I have a wall full of gold discs and seven huge world tours under my belt.

I did my thing with Jive. I was a national recording artist, but I had run into a wall.

After a casual listen, it might be easy to lump Rocky Votolato in with the downtrodden likes of Conor Oberst and Elliott Smith. But his songwriting is a bit more triumphant than theirs: Votolato would rather pull himself out of a gutter than wallow in it, focusing instead on the victory before the misery.

So, when you divide the world into music lovers, music fans and then those people who are just very casual about their music, it's wallpaper to them, it's elevator music, it's just the thing that's playing in the background that helps them through their day.

Music is made to be listened to, so you immediately have an issue where you're playing it in the background like wallpaper. Music doesn't want to behave like that.

I like the jarring thing, both in the music and the lyrics. That's why a lot of times our songs have a proper name of somebody. Usually you hear lyrics and something's going on, but it's just song lyrics. But if there's something in it, even a name that you don't associate with a song, it sticks out and becomes less wallpaper.

Color is a big part of what I do. It's like music. There are only so many notes in the scale, but there are endless permutations; there's no limit to the number. Color on the walls or furniture can reflect back and distort the reality of the true colors of lipsticks and eye shadow.

I realized that it's all really one, that John Lennon was correct. We utilize the music to bring down the walls of Berlin, to bring up the force of compassion and forgiveness and kindness between Palestines, Hebrews. Bring down the walls here in San Diego, Tijuana, Cuba.

We would play in this little room in my houseand my parents would bang on the walls: 'Stop playing so loud!'

A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls.

I have a ballet barre in my gym. I turn the music up so loud that the walls are pulsating, and I go for it for an hour.

What I play now isn't surf music. It's too powerful. I used to go through paper bags; now I go through brick walls. I play hard.

Nobody has Francis Bacon on their walls in their house - or very few people - but sometimes people listen to Beethoven as though it was background and a comfort, and I think that is very dangerous.

If I never sang on a record again I can still look at my walls. They are covered floor to ceiling with gold and platinum records from all over the world.

When I first started out in the band, I had so many walls up.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.