I began playing drums when I was seven and guitar when I was fourteen, but it wasn't until the early '90s that I took music seriously.
I just love to have fun with music, and try to find songs that say something that people want to hear.
Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.
Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to 'waste time' is a miracle - but that's exactly what art is for.
I don't watch TV. In my spare time, if I have any, I want to make music.
Even if the songs are at times painful - 'cause some of the songs are not all roses and balloons; some of them dig into deep things that I've been going through - there's a joy that I think people feel from my music and, hopefully, from my performance because I am so in love with doing what I do.
By the mid-'60s, recorded music was much more like painting than it was like traditional music. When you went into the studio, you could put a sound down, then you could squeeze it around, spread it all around the canvas.
I'm actually not a very good driver, to be honest with you. I'm a scatterbrain driver. I'm not very focused. I'm always trying to find the right music station or put on a new CD or trying to eat something.
I hope my music sets up the platform for me to be able to do lots of things - to have a cowboy-boot line, maybe, or do a perfume or makeup deal.
I like to be alone and listen to music. Every match I play, I have a tune in my head over and over. It might only be a few words or a small piece of the tune, but it can drive you mad.
My dad is Dominican, my mother's Puerto Rican, and I got into bachata at the age of 10 or 11. When I started listening, it had a reputation for being music for hick people. I thought that had to be changed. I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I knew you make something cool if you're cool.
Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you're flexing a different muscle, but it's beautiful because it is music.
Besides music and charity, fashion is one of my interests that has been growing over the past few years. I think it goes so hand in hand, music and fashion.
The common denominator is a love of music.
A lot of my friends hate my music. I have weird taste.
Cage always wanted to know what my structure was, if I had one. I often did have some sense of the time structure. Then he'd make a different one for the music.
I was on a path that could've really led to disaster, and the one thing for me that really kept me focused and gave me something to believe in and a sense of self-worth and a discipline was music.
Singing together is something human beings just do, and there are hundreds of years worth of just European vocal music available to read and hear.
I always hope that my music can inspire someone, the same way other artists inspire me.
Banjos are used in Celtic, English folk music and obviously American music. But not that much in pop music. But it's more versatile than people realise it to be. It's a beautiful instrument, very rhythmic and melodic. You can do anything with it.
I'm very grateful I went to school to study law, particularly tax law, which really is interesting to me and very useful to me now with my position. Music, however, will always be my number one passion; I like how it connects everyone.
I listen to a lot of medieval music.
I believe that my music is just about feelings, and the style is just a side effect.
When I was a kid, I was following black soul music.
Before breaking into music, I had various jobs: forklift driver, driving a courier. But I was forced into working rather than doing it off my own bat because that was my dad's way: you got a job and paid your way.
I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.
I see a lot of art; we see a lot of music, films at Sundance... that influences me and informs me more than theater just because I make a bigger effort to see other art forms.
My secret to success is that I've always loved good music and people.
When I started producing, I was just making music under all different names. 'Black Afro.' 'Super Grandmaster.' 'Mister Bull.' Like, the most stupid, idiotic names. 'Afrojack' was one of those idiotic names.
I wanna make music; that's all I wanna do.
You have the ability to write melodies and to put lyrics that mean something: to speak about life and what people are going through in their every day ups and downs, the good times and the bad times. Country music has always talked about life, I think; that's what I've always loved about it.
I started feeling it was wrong to withhold my music for money - as strange as that might sound!
When I play music, I realize that it filters emotions. I believe that peoples' voices are expressed in their emotions, and I try to do the same with my music.
Music is basically melody, harmony, and rhythm. But people can do much more with music than that. It can be very descriptive in all kinds of ways, all walks of life.
If people would like to come to my concerts I'd love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself.
The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.
