When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they're part of a family, not just a tour.
It's pretty cool that artists like Flo Rida and Bingo Players can be inspired to interpret a song like 'Piano in the Dark' in completely new genres. As an artist and writer, it's the highest compliment we can be paid.
I wanted my art to deal with very formal concerns and to deal with very material concerns, and to deal with antecedents and art history, which for me go very far beyond just the influence of African-American artists.
I started on the original comics from Stan Lee and all the artists and storytellers did from there, and I got to the graphic novel that Chris Clairmont did, which is the one Stryker comes from - 'God Loves, Man Kills', which is a brilliant story.
There's a lot of creativity in the industry, but I don't necessarily think that the most creative DJs or producers are always the biggest ones. I think it would be nice to see more of an open culture to different music. I think that's happening. With Spotify, I think people are discovering a lot of artists they might not discover otherwise.
Ursula Nordstrom was famous for finding artists in unlikely places. Maurice Sendak was a window designer, and she just came across one of his windows. Everyone was looking to find a talent.
I think, for the most part, our culture embraces that artists are born, not made.
I am a fan of the Coen brothers. I'm not a fanatic. I'm a big admirer. They create unique worlds, and there is a real atmosphere to their films. Not everyone can get that. That's a massive part of their appeal: you can recognise them. Like all the great directors or artists, you know it when you see it.
I've been drawing since I was about 3 and I come from a family of artists.
Artists of all times are like the gamblers of Monte Carlo, and this blind lottery allows some to succeed and ruins others. In my opinion, neither the winners nor the losers are worth worrying about.
I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries.
I honestly don't need much money. People love to buy me drinks. Hostesses love to feed me. Famous artists lavish me with expensive artworks, and heiresses do the same with jewels that I promptly lose.
My idea is that artists should make their music available for free, and fans should only pay for it if they really like it.
Every day you run into artists on the streets in SoHo or other creative people you want to do something with. There's nothing to match that chance encounter.
When I listen to Amy Winehouse, I believe that her heart and soul is in the music, or if I listen to other British artists like Duffy or Estelle. The aesthetic of it is different, and it's my point of view. It's not anything formulaic.
I look to a lot of artists who don't focus on one medium, who you can't pigeonhole.
Even if we artists are all very privileged, there's a constant frustration about how to do more or better, and never being satisfied.
I feed on other people's creativity, photographers, artists of every kind. Sometimes a feeling that you get listening to a song can be so powerful. I've wanted to write whole scripts around what I felt just listening to a piece of music. I think music is important, and surrounding your visual field with stimulating things.
There are thousands of very, very talented artists who will never be known, even after they are dead.
Artists should be free to create what we want. I believe there's a special value in work that is a reflection of oneself as opposed to interpretation. When I see a film or a TV show about black people not written by someone who's black, it's an interpretation of that life.
It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
I don't feel that electronic music has to stand on the back of urban artists or anyone else to be recognized. It's great music.
Few contemporary artists mined the space between the ordinary and the strange better than Orozco did.
In any country, in any city, there will be political influence on what is said, what kind of images are to be projected and, yes, of course artists can be and are influenced by politicians.
Some of the best songs that artists perform year after year are ones they hated.
I think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times.
When I work with artists, I give them a general guideline of what my vision is. Then they're going to speak their minds on how they view it, too. The song that defines 'Neon Future' the best is the title track. I wrote that with Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun. It's through his words. We had an amazing songwriting session together, connecting.
I don't think I would be here in an interview if YouTube wasn't in existence, if social media hadn't been developed, or if these platforms for artists to promote and develop their own careers hadn't become available.
In my day, the only people who achieved real independence were my father, Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin, who, with D. W. Griffith, formed United Artists. Other than that, everybody belonged to the big studios. They had no say in their own careers.
At the moment, I have it planned as a six or seven year experiment, but the books will only ever appear in bursts like this every couple of years and only with the best quality artists.
The Whitney is a museum that has a great rapport with younger artists and the community.
At that time, the academic orientation was rather technical contrary to that of the university, where art theory is very important. The teachers were renowned artists and among the best of that time.
The people who are competing business-wise out there want what other successful labels and artists have. I don't want what they have; I want my own path, my own sound, my own identity. Record labels care nothing about identity or artistic freedom, they want good business.
As artists, we're always going to like the songs we just now made over the songs we made a year ago.
In school, I learned about artists and how they were free to express themselves. I was allergic to conformity, and the lifestyle attracted me. I wanted to express myself in a way that slammed people up against the wall.
The Tonys are the once-a-year shot for all of these shows and artists who work so diligently every single performance but only for a thousand or so people at a time. This gives them the opportunity to perform to millions of people.
