For me, music is in the choice of what not to play as much as in what you've chosen to play.
My mom played 12-string and sang, and my dad could play pretty much any wind instrument and had a great ear for harmony. Soon enough, my sister and I got into music because we were always around it, and people were always listening to it.
I've always been fond of acoustic music.
I can understand when people say that they're not a big fan of my music. That's an individual opinion, and I respect that. But you don't have the right to comment on my choice of citizenship, my skin colour, or my religion. It's not open to discussion.
I don't think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.
Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I'm stuck, you know, I change the tuning.
Music is the only thing that I trust.
In times of joy and sorrow, love or hate, peace and unrest, music has always been an important outlet for expressing our emotions individually and as a nation.
I truly never saw myself doing anything other than music. There was nothing else that brought me this much joy, but also this much frustration.
Real folk music long ago went to Nashville and left no known survivors.
I grew up loving classic rock music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones - and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What is this?' I was eight and it changed my life.
I don't think about whether it's gonna be a dance record or a ballad or anything when I'm making music. I sit in the studio and I think, 'How am I feeling today?' and I write how I feel. It's really, really simple.
Texas is really special in that we have our own music scene, our own music chart. It's almost a genre on its own. It feels like you can make a great living just touring the state because it's so big, but eventually, I wanted a new challenge.
All the music I loved as a child, people thought it was junk. People were unaware of the subtext in so many of those records, but if you were a kid, you were just completely tuned in, even though you didn't always say - you wouldn't dare say it was beautiful.
I would like to think that Ben and myself have begun a partnership that will take us into different areas of music that we can continue to write, enjoy and keep me involved with music other then what I do with RUSH.
Just because I take my music international doesn't mean I have to sing in English. I will continue to sing in Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, and Tamil. I want to represent my own country through its own languages.
I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work.
A few girls would be catty and say that my voice sounded really high, and I sang like a chipmunk, I got a few prank calls about that a few times. But it didn't really bother me that much. I think I was so focused on music that nothing could break me or get in my way.
I don't know if it's embarrassing, but I have a lot of girl Christian music.
Music industry's a fragmented mess.
Musicians play music because you love... I loved to play drums since I was five. It's all I ever wanted to do. Rock stars, or as we call them, posers, guys who want to just look great, dress great. They're not musicians; they're looking for the fame.
I think the average country music fan grew up the same exact way that all the artists did, listening to hip-hop and country and R&B and pop and whatever it may be.
The problem with working under an outside label is that your music never seems to reach the right people.
I don't think when I'm doing music. Things just happen. I've even taken my clothes off while performing. But then I'm so shy that I can't even take my clothes off in the dressing room, even though it's just the other guys in the band in here with me. It's really weird.
I have no desire to play music unless I need music.
Dance music is an emotional journey. It's how well you can make people feel something that they haven't felt.
Art makes us human, music makes us human, and I deeply feel that science makes us human.
We've always described our sound as a bit more guitar driven than normal pop music. Kind of Pink in a boy band form. We've heard a few people say that so now we use it. I think Pink is amazing person to be compared to.
I just like music that sounds like music. Not like machines and computers and things that you design to make things sound slick and perfect.
The business of music. You know, it's an oxymoron in a sense. It's like the two things. Although we both need each other, they really don't go together.
I would categorize Die Antwoord as pop music: extreme, futuristic pop music.
I sometimes listen to music to get into some place that I need to get. I don't think it's because I have a musician as a father that I do this - most actors do.
I used to work at a catering hall in Hauppauge. Anybody who works as a server in a catering hall, more power to you, but I wanted to make music.
Whatever I do, I do for the universal. It's not like an individual thing; it's not like something from me. What I present to the people is for all of us, you know. I present music for the people.
I just love a slow groove. I feel so comfortable in it. But I listen to a lot of fast music, a lot of techno and house.
Pop is a little bit theatrical. That's the whole vibe. That's the point - is that it's great music, great melodies, great hooks. But, on top of it, it's a presentation. There's a showmanship about it. And that's why I wanted to be a pop star.
