Quotes About Artistry

When I was around 13 or 14, I started getting really into songwriting. And one day, I was rooting through my mum's old tapes and records, and I found 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley. I remember so vividly the first time I put it on. It blew my mind: his voice, the way he could play the guitar. I must have listened to the album over and over for weeks.

Most pieces take between two and three weeks and involve more than 40 people from the fabric cutters to the embroiders to the sewers. It's an elaborate undertaking.

My definition for 'playback' is being able to create a musical moment for people to have smiles and weep for joy.

I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.

I just write songs from the heart, and you never know who'll like the songs. I try to make sure that I don't allow anybody's expectation to weigh on me. I have my own expectation of life. I believe in letting people be free.

To be honest, we never, ever let business weigh down the creativity of this band.

Everything you do has certain significance, a certain weight. I think there is a film in everyone.

I think I'm always surprised at how much the musicians I meet put weight on things that aren't music.

I just turned 40, and I look at so many performers and so many people who are actually always on time and always have an album out. They don't have actual lives, in my opinion. I feel like I'm so much more than being famous and meeting a musical quota. And I don't know, just the weight of the scrutiny and attention is too weird for me.

It's good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way.

Everyone has their thing, and I was the weird, artsy kid.

I would often draw in my sleep. That alone made for twice the work... I couldn't use the weird stuff I drew while dozing off, so I'd end up having to draw it all over again.

I love people who go on stage and blossom like a weird flower.

The thing is, I make music I like. So it's just weird if someone says they don't like it.

I don't think when I'm doing music. Things just happen. I've even taken my clothes off while performing. But then I'm so shy that I can't even take my clothes off in the dressing room, even though it's just the other guys in the band in here with me. It's really weird.

I guess I think like deep inside, I know that it's like, it's a different kind of performing, it's not really... You're not performing like a guitar player or a singer is performing, you know what I mean? So it's weird to be in the same type setup as one of those. 'Cause I'm not really doing much, you know, like technically it's not that hard.

Drag is great way to get people to pay attention to me, but it's a difficult way to get people to take me seriously as a musician. So it's a weird Catch-22. It's like a gimmick that gets them to pay attention, but when they see my image, they're like, 'There's no way this is going to have any legitimacy to it.'

I'm extremely happy, but I don't do love songs for the most part. It feels weird; that's such a personal thing to me. I'd rather live that in my real life and play a different character outside of that.

I was trying to make my name just Artist in the beginning, but it was weird at first, because I wasn't an R&B singer or nothing. Not an R&B singer. I didn't do no melodic songs, none of that yet.

I don't know why we sold a lot of records or why so many people came to see us. Like 'Sabotage' - would you put that song on, like, 'I'm gonna listen to that right now?' It's a weird choice.

I guess I am a rapper. It's weird to be called that, or tell someone that's your profession.

It's weird, because the ideas in my songs aren't controversial to me. I feel like I should be able to sing about anything.

You know what's weird, I just write to write, with no intention, I just write.

I enjoy singing the songs a certain way, but I don't even know how the writing even began. To me, it's work that is kind of invisible; it's a weird kind of work to have because you're not working, but it's not not work. Formulating your thoughts and making a melody that's catchy enough for people to listen to what you're saying is really hard!