'The White Album' is a record I can go back to time and time again, and always find something different that I never noticed or appreciated before.
The biggest surprise to people is that I sang background on Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' album.
I don't have any problem with being the guy whose album people put on when they're feeling sad.
If part of the purpose of making an album is to get some radio play, then you might as well think about that. But that's not really how we picked the songs.
When I think about my new CD, the word 'joy' comes to mind. I sincerely hope that each listener will feel the earth, spirit, and aggressive creativity emanating from this album.
The second album of Black Mages is currently in the process of recording and the basic tracks have already been completed. Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to have a concert.
God would have to beam into me what I was doing and what the album actually sounded like because usually when I start a project like that, I already know what the album sounds like before I start it.
I had sat in one day in Central Park with Bonnie and Delaney, and Duane was playing with them, so I asked if he wanted to work on an album. You never had to say to him how to play the guitar.
I'm narrating the television series Biography. I'm still involved in my music - I have a new album out. I have an animated project in development. I'm writing a lot of things and you never know if one of them is going to become a six or seven year project.
The people who go get an LL album want to hear LL. They don't want to hear LL trying to sound like DMX or whoever else is out there. That's not what they want to hear from me, because if they want to hear that they can go get the real thing.
I grew up the biggest fan of the Cure. Knew every lyric, had every album, B-side, single, poster, everything. Then cut to fifteen years later, and we're working on songs together. Ridiculous.
I think every album you have to stretch further and further, give people another piece of you. But then I always try to deviate from the norm.
When it comes to best new artist or album or song of the year, yeah, it's very rare that you see someone in country win one of those. It's a very strong genre, and it's got roots so deep in our culture. I think the pool of voters listen more to pop and R&B and hip-hop. Those seem to be the major contenders.
The first album I ever bought with my own money was 'Ten.' Every single song reminds me of my childhood.
If you had ever heard my album you would know that I could never consider the music business!
Making an album should be an honest experience. It shouldn't be about trying to gauge where popular music is today; it should be about artistic expression and putting down what you want to put down.
I have always identified with Joan Didion's depiction of Los Angeles and Southern California, ever since reading 'Play It As It Lays,' 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' and 'The White Album.'
We toyed with the idea of making it a double album, but I think that would only have confused everybody even more, so we decided to stick with the songs we picked.
Even if I make a gospel album, my gospel songs are going to get you dancing and crunk.
I'm a sensitive guy. If you are a woman and you're in any kind of emotional duress and you write a song about it, I'll buy you album.
The mystical poetry of William Blake's artwork also forms the basis for the album cover.
I think my favorite album was probably Realization.
You know, I was such a big Beatles fan, and when I'd buy a new album I'd invariably hate it the first time I heard it 'cause it was a mixture of absolute joy and absolute frustration. I couldn't grasp what they'd done, and I'd hate myself for that.
I was sort of in denial about doing country for awhile but I sort of grew up and realized who I was, what I wanted to say. I think country music is the best music in the world and I'm glad to be doing a country album. I hope people will love it as much as I loved making it.
When it comes time to where the new album gets closer, I start singing the song a cappella; I'll preview it on my Snapchat and get creative with it - just kind of bringing everybody into more than just listening to the record on album.
Sometimes it's good to do something that you've never done before, so yesterday, I went out to buy Elton John's new album.
For my first album I wanted to make a record that would be intimate, deeply personal, and honest.
When I finish an album and I find myself listening to it in the car, because it makes me feel a certain way, that's the time to try to let other people know about it.
I love Sell Out, I think it's great. I love the jingles. The whole thing as an album is a wonderful piece of work. The cover. Everything about it. It's got humor, great songs, irony.
95% of the album is my writing, by choice, because it seems to be what the distributors want.
One Long Year was just a song here and there, and it was meant to reflect the mood that I was in but unfortunately it also reflected too little of any particular thing rather than hanging together as a whole album.
I don't have any sense or urgency about any of my writing, actually. I don't think mankind will be damaged if I don't put out a new album or a new book.
I want to make a pop album - something more upbeat than my stuff was in the '90s.
For Silk Route, my album 'Dooba Dooba' was a resounding success.
I did a cake for the 60th birthday of Elton John, for Britney Spears' 27th birthday and for the 'Circus' album she put out - the cake had circus themes. I prepared a cake for a surprise 82nd birthday event for the architect Frank Gehry; the cake was comprised of mini-replicas of his buildings.
It takes us about four or five days to get an album out.