About 13-14 years ago, I went back to my alma mater, Fairfax High School, and ran into the music teacher. She invited me to come speak to the kids about the viability of a music career. When I went into the room where I used to play every day in a big orchestra, they had nothing!
I feel that I want what allows me to reach the largest number of people as possible, and I don't feel ashamed of that. I think I'm the kind of artist that's meant to be on a major label because my music is different.
Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They're very annoying.
The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life.
I titled the album Reflections because I am reflecting on my music career.
It's like, focus on the music. Why do you have to know where I grew up?
I love going into a dive where they have no idea who I am or haven't heard my music and try to win them over.
I like to play music. I like projects. I like excuses to hang out with my friends and play music.
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have.
I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.
I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.
Man I mean, the great thing about playing clubs in Harlem is people have an appreciation not just for the music but for the history of the music.
I started listening to and playing other music in the '90s. It was after hearing other bands, like Bad Religion, cover Ramones songs that I started to like our songs again.
The public doesn't want new music.
Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.
It's so wonderful... if your whole day is rotten, once they start the music, it seems to melt away.
You know, I had the music baskets and the writing basket. And I had the acting. And those eggs just hatched first, and the others were slow to incubate.
I think that music has an endless life.
Not only was it enough to be a cover band, it was perhaps the highest calling. After all, if you could play music recorded by others, stay true to the original, and still add fire and flare, why not?
The music I write, I feel, is not the kind of music for a 25-year-old.
If the pressure is getting to you, whistle. In a barely audible way. It's the best way I know of to let go of tension. Music gets your mind off the situation, and the act of whistling melts the tension out of your body.
Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.
But I really love music, and having a creative outlet is really the best thing you can do for yourself.
You know, I like playing music and playing guitar, and I like to draw, so I thought I would end up just probably barely making a living, or probably having to have some other job, but being involved in one of those things that I really like to do. But that didn't work out like that.
Adele ultimately did well in such a large way because she affects everybody, and the way that she writes seems to be popular music, not because of her skin color but because she writes great music, and it's popular in that way.
I love to make music and stay grounded.
I'd say that it's important for music to be there that gives you a challenge, that rearranges things in your head.
My dad's music was a great inspiration to me.
My interest in his new toy, the Theremin, isn't very big. It simply does not fit into my way of playing music. I do not want to fiddle around with my hands in the air.
Garage music came up when people weren't paying attention.
When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to... because I was looking for a deal. I didn't have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.
If you go to Tiananmen Square, or go to any public area in China, you will hear my music at some point.
I mean, the way I see it is, every penny I've ever made through music is free money.
I'd always wanted to work in the studio and experiment with sounds. Things that I'm really influenced by and that I love are like The Beatles and Radiohead, and all those records by bands whose music is really involved.
I just make whatever music I want. It's my obsession, and it's very fulfilling.
I started in high school to be interested in music and from there, I decided to study in college. Yeah, you're right, I did start late, but luckily, because of my schooling, I picked up a lot of ground pretty quick.
