Every girl likes to just rock out when they put music on in their room - I learned that personally when fans would tell us how much they loved to make up their own dances to Cheetah Girls songs.
When I go to see people, I always kind of hope they are going to play some kind of songs I know. So you've got to know your audience. It's kind of something that is a blessing and a curse in a way. You're obligated to play some of that stuff that people know, but I don't think that's all you have to do.
There are so many great songs yet to sing.
I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.
I don't hate myself anymore. I used to hate my work, hated that sexy image, hated those pictures of me onstage, hated that big raunchy person. Onstage, I'm acting the whole time I'm there. As soon as I get out of those songs, I'm Tina again.
Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.
It's a gift that I have and I became good at it. When I heard my first song I didn't even know that I could write songs.
I tend to like songs that are very emotional, that strike a chord with me emotionally.
If it were bad songs, yeah, I'd speak up, but they're not bad songs.
I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them.
I wrote most of these songs right before the end. A lot of these songs are about that. Even if it's not direct, you can feel the beginning of the end of the breakup in these songs.
It's easier for fans to consume one or two songs at a time. Not everybody buys records, so some songs can get overlooked.
I had made all these rules for myself: I'm not writing social commentary, I'm not writing love songs.
I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can.
I got to realizing that I wanted to record, I wanted to experiment. And doing those same old songs the same old way - I said, 'I think it's time for me to have some fun.'
I think the concept of commercials, for example, I have had offers to do songs in different commercials, and it is not what I have liked.
Well, people can get advice almost anywhere, but they can't find a companion almost anywhere. And far more than being an advice-giver or somebody who just plays sappy love songs, I really am a companion on the radio at night.
After that I didn't listen to music as much because '70s music just wasn't... I remember all the songs, but it wasn't because I was into them, you know what I mean?
If there's a criticism of 'Cassadaga' that I agreed with, it's that we left things in the oven too long, that songs were overstuffed, with too many ideas competing for space.
We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.
I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.
We have the capacity to receive messages from the stars and the songs of the night winds.
I'm 60, and I did 60-year-old women songs. I'm not trying to be the Hip-Hop Queen, although I am the original Hip Hop Queen.
When the label came to me to say, 'would you like to do another record,' I said, 'Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let's do it.' And that was pretty much it... I never stopped writing, it's just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.
My friends gave me the first songs which was the first food in my soul for me.
No matter how long you play rock n roll songs might change just as the balls are there, the rock balls. And that's what's important to us.
I went to see 'Listen to My Heart: The Songs of David Friedman.' I have been a fan of his music for years, and I was invited to opening night because I know one of the producers.
Everything needs to be catchy because a listener is either going to stay with the song or lose interest in the first five seconds. But people also like those songs they can relate to and say, 'Yeah, I went through that.'
I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.
It's nice that there are movies and songs about romance - it's what motivates us as human beings. I'm all for being brainwashed by rom-coms.
'The Boatman's Call' is amazing; it's an album of love songs, really beautiful.
Some songs are just going to be acoustic with just maybe some light background stuff going on and maybe violin or something like that. Or sax - I mean, I'm definitely having some sax. That's just what I love. It's going to be jazz-rock stuff. That's what I'm aiming for.
So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.
I was always more interested in story songs, things with a point of view... and things that informed me.
I've always dreamed of having an album. The problem is that it's just very difficult to make an album nowadays because through technology, music shifts so fast, especially electronic music. Once you make five songs, the first one you did is already old and you wished you would have put it out right away. So that's kind of the difficult part.
Language is like songs, like food, like dance-it is the expression of what we think.
