My mother was the only one who encouraged and inspired me for singing. She was singing all the time in the house, playing records also.
I make hit records. I make hit records to motivate the people.
I used to carry a bag of records down to my friend's house every Friday, and we'd sit down and play all the records I loved, and we'd look at the album covers.
I don't spend much time listening to the records when they're done. Usually I let go of it. Especially in the Eighties and Nineties - they were like product, almost.
I've been obsessed with seeing life through music. My records, my relationship with records, my relationship with rock stars, everything that surrounds it, has been really one of the only ways that I ever started to understand the world.
I want make more records with my sister. I want to go on the road. I want to tour around the world. I want to continue to make great films and work with incredible directors that I respect and look up to.
You want to sell records, but if you want to call yourself an artist, your job is how you express yourself.
It's kind of weird. You can have hits, but it's hard to sustain a career. I went through that period where I didn't have a lot of hits, although people were still buying the records.
The decision about digital or film is going to be made for us. I think the answer is that film is gonna be gone, although I think it'll make a comeback; it'll be like vinyl records or something.
Everyone's talking about how no one is buying records any more, but to me it's quite logical. In the 1990s, music was so hardcore-marketed to a certain group of people that I think a lot of kids felt taken advantage of.
I'd like my records to reach as many people as possible, but I'm also thinking in terms of how I can keep from getting jaded or unhappy with the process.
You can't just walk away when somebody recognizes you. You have to take some time out and talk to them. It's not a waste of time - I just love talking to people. And I don't do this to sell records. The truth is, I do what I do because I love it.
Records are one thing, and obviously, without hit songs, you don't have the opportunity to do your shows. But my live show has always been my selling tool.
FNM didn't really become one of my favorite all-time bands until after I'd had all their records for a couple of years. And realized I was playing them every day.
Every album, I make big records. I'm going to always make an anthem. That's what I do.
I'm going to make country records back to back for a while - until country radio doesn't want me anymore or until I get my own theater in Branson - one of the two.
Our first two records are a lot quieter and more studio-based. We kind of had this feeling like we wanted to make a more quote-unquote 'rock' record. Then Patrick joined and really brought a new Herculean power to the band.
That's why you put out records: hoping that people will connect with them. I mean, I play music for myself, for sure, and I would still play music even if people didn't like it. But it means a lot when it connects to people and they enjoy it. But it's funny: you get criticism as much as you get praise. It kind of evens out after awhile.
My mom had early rap records, like Jimmy Spicer. In the middle of the records was a turntable and a receiver - I used to scratch records on it - and on top was a reel-to-reel. In front of that wall were more stacks of records. It was either Mom's record or Pop's record, and they had their names on each and every one.
Mick Jagger's fans bought records with their allowances. Sinatra's people bought them out of wages.
I'm a huge Freddie Mercury fan. I think he was the end-all. I love his lack of inhibition, his talent, the chances he took. He made mistakes on his records, and he didn't care.
I would practice while listening to records or learn from musicians who were better than I was.
My records are borderline dance records. They've got a real electro-rock heart and soul, and the vibe of the sentiment is pop, but there's a lot of people that were like, 'This is a dance record.'
Some people make records that are defined by their sexuality, but mine really are not.
When you're riding with your mom, and you're a kid, you'd listen to 'Dear Mama' and the radio friendly records. I used to sneak and listen to Too $hort.
In my opinion, some of the hip-hop records that come out, people are willing to compromise. I'm not.
I think among different members there had been concerns that the RSC had grown so large, and it had many members who really didn't have that conservative voting records, which really is a testimony to what a positive brand conservatism is.
We've grown up watching Dad setting and breaking records - my brother Sam was born when Dad was halfway across the Atlantic, going after a record.
In the imperfect records left of the anatomy of the ancient Egyptians, no trace of any knowledge of the spleen can be ascertained.
I learned how to play guitar by playing along to Jane's Addiction records and Smashing Pumpkins records, things you can totally hear if you listen to my guitar.
I was a slow and lazy reader as a kid. 'The Prince and the Pauper' was the only non-school book I would read, over and over, between television, records and radio, until I picked up my aunt's copy of 'In Cold Blood' and she didn't ask for it back.
Sometimes you make a record that is what you want to hear. I've made a couple of those, idealized creations of what I wanted to hear. Then there are records that are what you feel.
What's interesting about the shift from an industrial age to a technological age is that we keep inventing new media: movies, records, radio, television, the Internet, and now ebooks - and one of the things that's most interesting about the invention of a new medium is watching it reinvent itself as it penetrates the culture.
All the music I loved as a child, people thought it was junk. People were unaware of the subtext in so many of those records, but if you were a kid, you were just completely tuned in, even though you didn't always say - you wouldn't dare say it was beautiful.
I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work.
I realized that, for me, great records always moved me with the lyrics and the melodies. And so I said, 'I think I can do it now,' 'cause I found a team of people who understand I didn't want a record that was 'drop it, pop it, shake it' just 'cause I can dance.