When I got into music, I wanted to learn guitar just enough to be able to write songs. I wanted to be able to express myself.
You know, being an entertainer is partly being on the road, and a lot of your songs come from the road.
Music is in me. I don't have much of a choice. People might listen to one of my songs or come and see my because of my famous last name, but if my music's not good they won't hang around.
I can't speak for other artists; every group has a different approach. For us, it will always be important to keep working hard, dancing better, writing better songs, touring, and setting an example.
The premise that we're working with is that when most people go to a show, they're not really watching what's going on onstage. They may be watching what's on the screen. But when the songs are playing in their mind's eye, they're actually watching a movie.
I'm very easily influenced, and I'm also a quick study, so I think when I decided I wanted to write pop songs, I literally just listened to pop radio for six months to get a feel for it and understand it.
I don't mind doing two or three Eagles songs and playing the drums. I'm not one of those artists who's going to sit here and deny the past.
Happy songs are very difficult to write. How many truly great upbeat songs are there?
You're not going to hear me singing songs about Wall Street because I don't know anything about that.
When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.
In my own life, I had gone from Maryland State Honors Chorus and writing and singing my own songs to a musical silence. It seemed the busier my work life would get, the less I had to feed the other parts of my own soul, including the arts.
Most people say, 'Well, Earl, you sing the blues,' or however they want to categorize it. I just sing songs.
Because they're my stories, they're my version of events of the past three years. But I really hope people can hear their own stories within the songs and they can become our version of events.
I may like the Blizzard best, of all the songs I have written.
I love to sing big rock and roll songs; I love to sing country-pop stuff, and then I love to sing soft, sadder beautiful songs.
I'm really a singer, so I love songs and I love singing. I like rap music, but I didn't grow up freestyling.
Downloading songs is not good.
I was a student at Columbia College, actually, in the Architecture school. Paul would drive in from Queens, showing me these new songs. I can't remember us working it out.
A friend of mine once told me that I can't screw up when I play my own music. I also take voice lessons, play other peoples' songs out of music books, and occasionally figure out how to play other people's music from records. This keeps my ears, fingers, and mind working.
These days, there are many people around the world who listen to the songs that made me infamous and read the books that made me respectable.
I would be content if I had nothing but a tape-recorder. I could still write songs and record them.
I just remembered songs my grandmother taught me, and songs that I learned for the recordings. But, then I learned to speak Italian. When I was there, I hired a professor who stayed with me 24 hours a day. She wouldn't let me speak a word of English.
That jam was so much fun that by the end of the tour, we just jammed on all of the songs.
I feel like my music is just an extension of my acting. I treat the songs like scenes that tell a story... it's very similar. My favorite thing is when cartoon fans show up to my live gigs! They are always the most kick-butt audience members 'cause they're not trying to act all cool like a lot of the music fans do! It's refreshing!!
I have so much music inside me I'm just trying to stay afloat. I don't tend to write for a particular band - you have to just write the songs and then let God into the room and let the music tell you what to do.
I like to write songs about what's happening, what I see around me and what I hear. Everyday life. Someone may be talking to me and I may take it from that.
But then when he left, I realized that it was harder to write songs and feel spiritually connected to art and music as a band. When he came back I felt it again, instantaneously.
I like 'Bewitched' off the first album because it's one of the happiest songs I've ever written and, as any writer will tell you, happy songs are a million times more difficult to write than sad songs.
My girlfriend at the time convinced me to send these songs to Cavity Search. When they wanted to put out my record I was totally shocked.
The game is changing with songs like 'Earned It' as opposed to it changing me.
My songs lie somewhere in between the evergreen standards, rock n' roll and pop.
I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their own life in different ways. Something for everybody to have a piece of.
Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.
I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.
Even though there are incredible songs floating around Nashville, it's important for me to have my voice heard.
Musically, I always allow myself to jump off of cliffs. At least that's what it feels like to me. Whether that's what it actually sounds like might depend on what the listener brings to the songs.
