Throughout my whole life, as a performer, I've never played with a band. I've always played alone, so I was never required to stay in rhythm or anything. So it was a real different experience for me to start playing with a band. There were so many basic things for me to learn.
I can't think of a performer who is better on television than in person.
I have always thought of myself as a performer first and way down the line as a recording artist.
The thing I fail to do is fully comprehend what's given back to me by the audience. You would think you would be a performer partly so you could feel all the appreciation or adulation, but I haven't quite managed that yet.
You put yourself on the line as a performer, and when people reject you, it's a personal rejection.
Some bands blow it before they even play. The most important moment of any show is when a band walks out with the red amp lights glowing, the flashlight that shows each performer the way to his spot on the stage. It's crucial not to blow it. It sets the tempo of the show; it affects everyone's perception of the band.
My entire life, I've always known that I wanted to be a performer, but I didn't know exactly how, where or when. I never learned or studied the craft, formally. I grew up doing martial arts and playing piano. But, something inside of me always said that I was going to do this, as far back as I can remember.
For a performer, passion is far more important than technical skills. If a dancer's leg isn't at a perfect angle, I can see past that, but if someone's dead in the face, it's really boring.
Pro wrestling was there, and I was good at it, thank God. I started getting a lot of offers, but unfortunately, at WWE I was under a tight leash. I think it had a lot to do with The Rock making the transition, and me possibly being the next guy - you know, the company didn't want to lose another top performer.
I was a shy kid, but somehow I knew I would make it as a performer. I'd always be telling my mum that I was going to be a famous singer. In my school yearbooks I would write, 'Remember me when I'm famous.' I knew I had a gift.
I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can't be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.
My mother named me after her favorite actor, Joel McCrea, and dressed and presented me as her avatar. I'm sure she wanted to be a performer, but when that was impossible, I was her next best shot.
I think Madonna is a wonderful performer.
Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.
Probably more than anybody else, I loved Nat 'King' Cole as a performer - not only his singing but his piano playing. Whenever he had a new record come out, I'd get it and try to learn how he was playing. And he was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.
I am a seasoned performer.
What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen, he's become a different person.
The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I've got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.
Right now, my career is in three directions: as a performer, as an arranger, as an author - and I don't give any one of them true precedent, or true top marks, as opposed to the other two.
I don't think I realized right away that I was switching from being a fan into being a performer. I've always tried to maintain that duality, because I think fandom is a way of being porous and curious, but it did feel like a step forward.
Sometimes people ask me, 'You do stand-up?' I try explaining what I do, and I don't think they really get it. So: 'Yeah, I do stand-up.' I wish there was one word to express what I do - that way, I don't sound arrogant. Whenever I say I'm a performer, people think I'm a performance artist: 'She paints herself white and pretends to be a flower.'
I don't get to do a lot of fight scenes on 'Sanctuary,' but I'm a trained fighter; I've been doing martial arts for years and, you know, I'm very active physically; I used to be a circus performer.
I suppose it's a very highly developed form of denial, but some part of me completely denies that I'm a performer.
There are so many reasons to mark the passing of the great Joe Cocker - as many songs as he wrote, recorded and performed in his remarkable concerts. For me, Cocker was also the only performer who successfully covered and even improved on The Beatles.
I was never a child actor. I was a child performer.
I think probably with any performer, but maybe with rock music especially, the audience wants to see the singer being real, and exploring, and not doing a rehearsed routine, so I'm just constantly looking for new things to try. I'm really curious out there, and my curiosity has led me into all kinds of bizarre situations.
I've done fairly well as a performer and a DJ in the U.K., so 'Game of Thrones' really just opened up a whole new market for me.
I think I went more toward writing because that's my talent. I don't think I was a great performer... And I like being behind the scenes a little bit.
I dropped the 'Bundy' with my country music because I wanted it to be two separate things: There's me as a songwriter and a country singer, and there's me as a Broadway performer.
In the end, the market will decide which is the better performer: dirty coal-fired power or clean wind and solar. Market-based competition. That doesn't sound like communism to me.
I was a late bloomer. I wasn't a child performer.
As a standup performer, I'm onstage, and it's important how the audience is looking at me. I'm looking at whether they're leaning forward or not, those types of things. You read an energy. And it's the same thing in a scene with other actors.
I started performing in 1950 at the age of 16 when I joined the Burton Lester's Midgets as a performer. Shortly after, I became a DJ with Mecca Organization before joining Billy Smart's Circus as a clown and shadow Ringmaster.
I love my fans, and I love my relationship with the fans, but when you're a performer, and you're used to being the mac daddy, the main cat, and all of a sudden you're not that guy anymore, it's kind of a whole different spectrum and a whole different level.
When you first start out in stand-up and, probably, as any performer, you enjoy the attention so much, and even though that hasn't died down on stage, it certainly has satiated whatever was in me that was needing that much attention. When I'm off stage, it's not something that I really need.
I never wanted to be a performer, I never wanted to be Yo Yo Honey Singh, the rock star.
