Quotes About Music

Making records is not brain surgery.

I'm in three bands, and I love to produce records of other bands, and I have a family that I love. I wanted to be everything for everybody and do all of that... I think I just really beat myself up until I got really sick and needed surgery, because it was physically manifesting itself.

I went through this kind of existential crisis. I was going through a breakup; I tore my ACL and my meniscus and had to have surgery, so I was out of school for a few months. Then my computer crashed, which was, like, my whole life. So when I came out of it, I started making music that, I think, was the most true to me.

One time, I was out watching music, and someone whispered in my ear, 'You can do surgery on me any time.'

Being naive I think is how you construct new music. When you start thinking too much what is it you're doing? You're just making an album. You're not doing brain surgery. If you take it too seriously you start taking yourself too seriously.

The whole rise of new adult contemporary music and smooth jazz was a nice surprise.

About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I'm good at. I know what I ain't. I'm always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that's the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too.

Occasionally, you get a nice surprise when someone covers your song in an extraordinary way.

When I play guitar, it's automatic. I don't try to do something; I just do it. And it's already so ingrained in what I do, I don't think about it. I don't try to do something - I just do it. And the more I do it that way, the more I surprise myself. And if I surprise myself, that's the best thing.

I don't like the idea of pre-meditated music. Things like free-styling, the element of surprise - I think people need to scale back and re-focus on making moments again.

You know who I'd like to open for? This will be a surprise, but I'll tell you who: Iron Maiden.

With solos, I don't like to be too prepared going in - I like to surprise myself.

I did a double CD, 'The Element of Surprise,' in 1998. That album went gold.

Close to the Edge, Red, One of a kind, Discipline, Earthworks, The Sound of Surprise, all seem to me to be albums that captured the essence of the intention.

I want to make myself and the crowd happy by way of something different, and that makes things difficult. I'm never playing something that hasn't been released or no one has ever heard before because I care to deliver them what they were hoping to see from me. But also I play four or five songs that will definitely surprise them.

The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.

No surprise here: Pop music is by far the most conservative art form there is.

I was never particularly academic, so it was no great surprise when I failed my 11-plus and consequently went to Wibsey Secondary Modern. I did all right in English, history and music, which were the subjects that most interested me.

When I think people like one record more than the other, then someone will surprise me.

I only started singing at about 15, and it came as quite a surprise to my dad.

When we think about big records, a lot of producers are thinking of how to make it as standard as possible. I think those days are gone. I think you have to surprise the audience in 2015.

In terms of the music, it feels almost like trouble's a good thing - you never know when a song is going to surprise you. We look for these subversive moments in songs.

I missed the Wilco phenom while busy obsessing over rock en Espanol. So imagine my surprise when I found myself at O'Hare getting on a plane with my Chi-town homeboy, Jeff Tweedy. I loved the guy right away and loved his family. How odd to know somebody before you listen to them. I don't know if that's bad or good.

It caught us by surprise when people started calling us a boy band because we'd always considered ourselves pretty serious musicians.