I live my life and play my music, and I don't really seek out other people's approval or accolades or things like that. I try to do what's true to me, and how it all comes out is fine.
Like anything important, anything you need people to hear - you've got to have music for it. You've got to make it at least a little piece of a song or sometimes a whole song.
All I can say is we love what we do, and the audience is still there for us. I think what's given us such longevity is that our music may not be fancy, but it touches a nerve with the average Joe.
The idea of a musical comedy was something we had had in mind for many years, but the project 'Igudesman & Joo: A Little Nightmare Music' has a history that goes back five years. I can say that this is the most successful project that we have ever done.
Every time I turn on the radio, I must be on the wrong song or something. But, to be honest, since I went on the road back in 1970, I didn't listen to radio music because I didn't want to subconsciously steal somebody's stuff.
I was a piano player. I love piano playing. I just love all music.
Music can be useful during training to help get you psyched, and I still listen to music on easy climbs or in the gym. But during cutting-edge solos or really hard climbs, I unplug. There shouldn't be a need for extra motivation on big days, be it music or anything else. It should come from within.
I'm known for mushy music.
I dedicated most of my life to basketball, and that was my plan until my junior year of college when I got ill and was bed-ridden for eight months. In those months, I wanted to be productive, and I taught myself how to produce music on my computer. When I went back to school, I started taking all my classes in music and DJing a lot.
I promised myself that I wouldn't be afraid to be who I was when I chose to do this music thing.
Oh, I will always be honest with my music. The records are black boxes for me. Like if you want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my anthems. I've never let people's opinions affect the way I write.
Creating any type of art is all about mood. I've been making extreme music in one fashion or another for decades. And truthfully, Down has a big enough fan base to where I could remain content to do only that, but music is a vast territory and I am an explorer. And I'm a lover of all things considered extreme in music.
I was like, 'Man, bluegrass - that's like Roy Clark playing banjo on 'Hee Haw.' I'm a huge 'Hee Haw' fan. But I didn't know about bluegrass. It seemed like old people's music.
I do feel pressure from the outside world a little bit just because everybody wants new music, which is really nice. It just proves that everybody likes what I'm doing. But at the same time, I feel like it's important to just chill and experience things and really make the songs true to me.
Country music is still your grandpa's music, but it's also your daughter's music. It's getting bigger and better all the time and I'm glad to be a part of it.
I have a great body, I really do. But I want to be taken seriously as an artist, and wearing anything that shows it off will be a distraction from the music. That's how my signature uniform, my tuxedo, came about. It's classic and timeless. You'll see me in black, white, and a pop of color on my lips. That pop adds a little magic.
Every time we give a musician the advice to give away the music and sell the T-shirt, we're saying, 'Don't make your living in this more elevated way. Instead, reverse this social progress, and choose a more physical way to make a living.' We're sending them to peasanthood, very much like the Maoists have.
My favorite music isn't necessarily the songs that One Direction come out with. That doesn't mean to say I don't secretly really love some of our songs, which I do.
God-dang-it, country music is my heart.
Punk is not really a style of music. It was more like a state of mind.
It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.
As a journalist, I have wanted very much to find a way to write about the music industry, and it's been frustrating to me that that's never worked out.
'SNL' is probably one of the premiere outlets that a musician can perform on that isn't obviously a music outlet.
You had better love the music... because sometimes the music doesn't love you.
I've always been good about interfacing with machines. But that never seemed like a gateway to being able to make music. I never made the connection that music could be made with machines - that was what drum and bass was for me.
I love Cher Lloyd's music. I didn't actually hear her music as I was creating my own, but it's cool that we have styles that are considered to be similar.
A great deal of our work involves switching music off.
My parents loved classical music. And my father adored Mozart. But for some reason, I always had a reaction against it.
I never really told my parents that I wanted to be a pop star or anything. They just knew that I was totally obsessed with music. Funnily enough, my father always used to say that he didn't think I could sing.
I don't care about what people might call my style. It's just like when people call my music 'jangly,' 'dream,' 'oceanside,' whatever - I don't care. I'm just wearing whatever I can scrap together.
I was weirdly obsessed with music until I was 11, and then I turned into a nerd.
I do play the guitar, but I do it for fun. And I am terrible at writing music as well. I have tried and failed, horribly.
Music has always been my passion. It was not a hobby or something I can take out of my life.
When 'Nevermind' came out, my roommate had the CD. At first, I actually thought, 'This is too polished and commercial.' It was a little off-putting. But then I was like, 'This is the best music ever.' It felt so close to what I wanted to do.
The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests, victories and ruinous, crushing defeats can be tied to songs to such a degree that it's almost unbearable to listen to them again, as they bring back the memories so vividly.
I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.
