Quotes About Music

Every generation has had some sort of focus for their unrest and discomfort with growing up. But today, the music that's in the charts is probably liked by their parents as well, and I think it's a part of youth that you need something that isn't liked or understood by the older generation.

When I'm having a song-in-the-shower moment, I go to 'The Blessed Unrest' by Sara Bareilles.

That's the thing I like about my sound. It's real raw and very unsafe compared to a solid state kind of sound.

People in bands don't have the kind of conversations people might think they have. The best things about being in a band are the things that are unsaid.

I think there are unseen powers who don't want pop music to be anything other than glorified Madonnas.

Kris Kristofferson and Steve Goodman were the two most unselfish people I ever met.

Over the years, Cajun music has always calmed me down, or if I'm feeling real sick or feeling real unsettled, I can put that music on and try to get focused again.

I think people would describe a lot of Sleater-Kinney as unsettling. And I don't think our best moments have sonic assonance to them. I think that we are best with a little bit of... a caustic attitude and tone.

Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term 'still' seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure.

'Unstoppable' is a song that I wrote about my mom.

ABC had all these schlocky, bubblegum acts, and we had to come up with suitable material for them. In which we were amazingly unsuccessful.

The world must be filled with unsuccessful musical careers like mine, and it's probably a good thing. We don't need a lot of bad musicians filling the air with unnecessary sounds. Some of the professionals are bad enough.

I was unsure if people would like the music of Kabali' and had even booked tickets to Sydney on the day of its release. I didn't want people to come and throw stones at my house!

Music is not math. It's science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

One time, when I was in my teens, jamming in a Kansas City club, I was doing all right until I tried doing double tempo on 'Body and Soul.' Everybody fell out laughing. I went home and cried and didn't want to play again for three months.

When the album 'Duke' came out, by Genesis, Phil Collins beat Dad in a drummers poll. My dad got me to learn 'Turn It On Again' by Genesis. I'd play it, and he'd go, 'Do it again,' until I got it right. I'd play it until I nailed it, and then he went, 'I don't see what the big deal is. My 12-year-old son could play that song.'

I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet.

Every other guitar player was just copying other guitarists. From the time I was 13 up until 18, I practiced at least eight hours a day, every day. My health suffered for it - I was losing sleep and not eating properly.

I grew up playing about 15 instruments and the way that I was able to accomplish that was by cutting my classes, hanging out in the band room all day, and going from one instrument to the next to the next, until I learned how to play everything by ear.

Around 20. I'd been trying to transition from the streets to the music business, but I would make demos and then quit for six months. And I started to realize that I couldn't be successful until I let the street life go.

When I was four, we had to choose a musical instrument to play at school, and I chose the cello. I played until I was 18, and although I found it nerve-racking to play solo, I loved playing in an orchestra. When I left school I didn't carry on with it, which I regret.

I remember my father playing a cassette for me when I was fifteen - Amjad Ali's 'Durga.' He said, 'This is from our part of the world. You must listen to it.' And I continued rewinding it and listening to it from early evening until midnight. By the end of it, I was nearly in tears.

We always mess around with riffs and stuff and kind of jam out during sound checks, but we never actually started playing covers live until we started goofing off a little bit more on stage.