I was pretty strict in high school about who I would listen to. Musicians like Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell... who were, in my opinion, great writers. The music mattered, but it held hands with the lyrics, and the personality was, overall, unsullied.
There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.
I love music, and I love singing.
In a way I spend my entire life stealing from everything - from the past, from cities I love, from where I grew up - grabbing things, taking not only from architecture but from Italy, art, writing, poetry, music.
I'm addicted to something at all times. Like, it's always music, but maybe sometimes it's a pair of pants or something else. That's just how my personality works.
My music and my lyrics are essentially emotional postcards.
The first time I shared my music and style with my mom, she said, 'Boy, you look like you came right out of the 1950s.'
I love traditional music. But in any culture around the world, there is the historic and cultural music and everything that's been passed down and passed down, and hopefully you take that, and then you take it, you know, the next distance, and then somebody else takes it the next distance.
Popularity gets up people's noses. But I understand the importance and the function of popular music. There is an artistic purpose. Popular music helps people to develop a curiosity and leads them towards classical music.
I've always liked Frank Sinata and Big Band music.
Just as like the music industry still wishes for the days when it controlled its own production and distribution, the media and marketing world still yearns for the silver bullet of the thirty-second spot on 'Seinfeld,' even as it knows those days are over.
'La La Land' is about the city I live in. It's about the music that I grew up playing; it's about movies that I grew up watching. Even the big spectacle of the movie feels private to me in that way.
I drove right into the music with the same sort of attitude as I went into the football stuff with. Just found a routine and hard work, and it helped me progress a lot faster.
My eldest brother Atticus just won an Oscar some years ago, as he wrote the music for 'The Social Network.'
My goals are to continue acting and also to produce some independent films in the next few years. Music is a passion of mine, so I also want to continue along that path, creating with my friends.
At first, because this genre of music was so urban, sometimes we would sing songs that were so aggressive. And my parents didn't like it. They would break my cassettes and say, 'That music is garbage.'
I'd love to see a Nirvana biopic. I loved them when I was younger. I really like jazz music, so I'd like to see a Billie Holiday biopic - she was a fascinating woman.
I don't think you're selling out by allowing the masses to love your art. The only curse is that, when you get so big, sometimes people forget to look at the music.
My music is not really about one ideology. It's not about one truth.
I'm not a big equipment guy; I think that people are a little bit shocked by that. I really don't care about gear in general. I care about people and their intentions to make music - it doesn't matter what equipment you have.
Most of all I want to make pop music that has something real behind it.
I have to be honest: I think production is mad - exciting - because, of course, you're creating the record. When you're a singer, you're just singing. Creating the music, directing, and seeing where it's gonna go in production is very, very exciting.
Some of us get a feeling when we hear music and we feel music, and you want to figure out how to continue to feel that.
The thing that happened with the music business, there are no stores anymore where you can buy music. It's all an online business now, and that's, you know - the bookstore culture is a very vibrant part of the American experience that we're very reluctant to see go away.
I love... different kinds of music. I like classical music and pop music. I like alternative, and I like rap, hip-hop, and I kind of collected all these things that I love, and they infused my sensibilities, and I just wanted to sing because it felt like it needed to come out of me.
Instead of books, art, theatre, and music being consigned to specialized niches, we might have a criticism that better reflects the eclecticism of our time, a criticism that takes in various arts all at once.
Poetry itself is music. I'm just lucky that I can convert it into music. William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician. All of his poems are all like songs, and that's how I always try to start my thoughts.
Right out of school, I did this show called 'Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.' It is based on a classical text with new music - not necessarily confined by a certain genre. It was a diverse, interesting group of musicians, actors, nonactors, and singers all creating this thing that is bigger than all of us.
I picked up the guitar very late, in a very pagan way - I didn't know how to play, but I knew I had to. I drew and I had a diary, but it wasn't enough; I needed to express more. As soon as I learned two notes, I started to tell a story, which is why, I guess, my music resembles blues or folk.
I started singing backgrounds for Mary Mary and Usher during 'Confessions.' Then I jumped to working with Anthony Hamilton, Jill Scott; jumped again to Kanye West, The Killers. I kept saying, 'OK, this is the last time; then I get to do my music.'
I want to put out music I really believe in, and when I felt that was threatened, I lashed out at everybody.
LL Cool J is a huge presence. He is a music mogul. He brings that experience and that life into the room.
Playing in my early bands, working as a studio musician, producing and going to art school was, in retrospect, my apprenticeship. I was learning and creating a solid foundation of ideas, but I wasn't really playing music.
My brain kind of rolls pretty fast when I'm conscious. It's constantly looking for stuff to do. Like if I'm in my house and I'm hanging out, I tend to be listening to music whilst watching a film whilst sending e-mails.
The new Zune may not be an iPod killer, but it does offer a clean interface, great industrial design, HD radio, and a subscription model for music, making it significantly less expensive for big users.
I'm a big fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, and I realised recently that my music is Pre-Raphaelite in a certain way, in that it reinvents an older era and romanticises it, puts it in this gilded frame.
