I start with the subject matter I want to write about. Then I make a musical base for that and create an atmosphere with the music. Once I've done that, the lyrics come last.
When someone gets passed that mic, and they know deep down inside that they wanna say something or sing something or produce something, but they don't do that, it's like killing your musical life.
It's not every day you get to create a band like the Sex Pistols, and what it changed, on a musical level. I love that we've done something that was important.
When I was a kid, I went through a lot of musical phases, and one was when I'd learn everything that The Beatles ever recorded. After I started drums, I fell in love with their music so much that I just wanted to learn everything.
I didn't think of myself as a singer. I'm an actor who recites words, and sometimes that happens to be on musical notes.
One of the best essays I've seen in recent years was by a young woman who wrote about how being chosen to choreograph a high school musical forced her to assume a leadership role she wasn't sure she was ready for - but of course she was.
If I wrote a musical it wouldn't be about me. Although I do some magic, so it would probably be about a magician who appeared and re-appeared all over the place.
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music.
I've got so many musical personalities, I could probably get treatment for it.
I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world.
I signed up for the musical Tommy in the West End, where I met my husband.
I'm American. I'm eclectic. I'm going to follow my musical passions. And if people don't like it, and it hurts my legacy, I'm not going to worry about that.
I'm not really a big musical fan. I enjoyed 'West Side Story' when it came out, but it gets a bit tired in the end.
I think that what we were doing with the live musical version of 'Shrek' was taking the ideas and the structure of the movie and not necessarily reinventing it but reimagining it. It is a very different medium to perform.
Whether it's performing a concert with my quartet or sitting in with my peers, enjoying musical conversations at home with my brothers or hanging and playing choro with my friends - sharing moments in that bright space of music are the happiest times.
We want to connect all these musical worlds together. We just improvise; we know straight away if its going to work or not. They're not covers - I hate the word cover. We do a transcription: mix it up, put our own spin on it. I think people will be surprised how powerful our show is.
It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
Before 'Memphis,' I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.
Well I had a musical background, but I still didn't know a lot about drums at the time.
Since the inception of Gym Class in 1997, every member has had another musical outlet, if not three or four.
Musical auditions are always the worst because you have to sing and act, and that's so stressful.
If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void.
So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before.
When it's open and honest, that's when the real nature of who you are as a vocalist or as a performer, all of that stuff can finally start to become what it's supposed to be. Like a settling into yourself. It's not even a musical thing, it's a whole mindset, a whole acceptance of who you were supposed to be. Life sounds good.
A musical takes two to five years. You have to love it to put in the years.
I was a musical theater kid in high school.
But I wish they would make a musical of some kind. I miss musicals so much. You don't see them anymore.
Musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever's going on in that particular culture. It's the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something and watch the scenery around you.
Maybe I've got to admit that what I did here was enough. I can make some more films. Maybe I'll direct a film. Maybe I'll have my musical put on stage. But nothing, really, to be absolutely honest, competes with making a very successful pop band for 10 years of my life.
The designs were based on quite a lot of research of what a movie musical is, filtered through the eyes of today. If we'd gone strictly with the '20s, the movement would have been impaired.
I am not a music snob. If anything, my musical taste is bad by any critical standards.
'9 to 5 the Musical' is perfect for anyone that's ever wanted to string up their boss, which is almost all of us.
'High School Musical' is definitely the best thing that's happened to my career and I walked away with great friends from it.
As an actor, you can do everything. I grew up in the theater, and you could do a musical, a comedy, a tragedy.
Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience.
When I'm playing with the band or playing with some projects or some of my own stuff it's about the musical approach. That would be the more turntablist approach to things of where it's strictly about music.
