Quotes About Artistry

Freddie Mercury made a lot of sense to me even though I didn't understand the lyrics.

I don't think I'll ever stop writing. I write almost every day. I'd write plays even if they were never done again. You're at the mercy of whatever talent you have.

Every form has its merits. And I like to work in a lot of different forms.

I will never be a Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep, the kind of actor that disappears into a role.

I'm very conscious that I want the dance audience to respond and respect what I'm doing, so I'm always very true to the music and I honour the music in the way I see it - I don't mess around with the music.

That can definitely mess with your music - if you overthink. 'What's radio going to think?' or 'What are these people going to think?'

Really, I just sit down, mess around, and play with sounds.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

Gospel artists are messengers; they are vessels of a message.

No matter what as an artist that's always what you want to do, you want to connect to the audience, you want to be able to send whatever message it is that you're singing about, you want to be able to convey that - and not make them feel - you want them to feel it, you want them to feel what you feel.

I've always felt that some of my best lyrics are less than three minutes long, and it's great when you can do that - be succinct and get the message across in a simple, clear idea.

When I write, I don't think about messages for my readers.

If you're really listening there are alot of hidden messages in my songs.

Music doesn't come out of you, it comes through you. You are almost like a messenger.

It's incredible, but I think a lot of people it shot over their heads 'cause they're used to just getting images and messing around with them, and for us to do something quite so 'designed' was a bit of a shock.

But I've been freestyling and messing around with rhyming since I was 13. That's when I really started listening to hip-hop music.

I like messing around, and I like working with artists who I respect.

I just love being in the studio, and that's kind of what I do when I'm not on the road. I'm just in the studio messing with stuff, and I love playing all the instruments.

I don't want people messing with my sound, my stuff.

I write everything out in longhand in one fast go. And then I throw out the first few and start over again. By the end of the first draft, the whole thing's messy and disgusting and horrible, but you really understand the foundational stuff.

For me, I'm way more at home in heavy metal than I am in classical music.

Even when I wrote death metal songs for a death metal record, I was always trying to do my best to make it as catchy as possible because that's how I like music.

I was in a rock band; I was my own folk singer; I was in a death metal band for a very short time; I was in a cover band, a jazz band, a blues band. I was in a gospel choir.

I think if you're trying to be funny, sometimes you're bending a piece of metal in a direction it doesn't want to go. And sometimes comedy just needs to find itself.