We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.
A big part of making music is the discovery aspect, is the surprise aspect. That's why I think I'll always love sampling. Because it involves combining the music fandom: collecting, searching, discovering music history, and artifacts of recording that you may not have known existed and you just kind of unlock parts of your brain, you know?
Magne Furuholmen is a very dear friend of mine. A-ha are a classic pop band and they've got some brilliant songs. I'd say 'The Living Daylights' was one of my favourite Bond tunes: regardless of it being a Bond song, it stands alone as a great piece of music.
My big ears indicated a talent for music. This thrilled me.
I buy records from all across the board. I get kind of a hybrid of influences in my own music.
What I do and where I come from, the kind of music that I'm making, it's definitely U.K. If I turned around and did a tune with Timbaland, it would be amazing, but it would be me kind of leaving where I'm coming from.
I try to put myself into unusual and difficult situations as often as I can in order to capture the element of struggle in the music.
I'll probably be 80 years old and still performing. Music is like fashion, it changes. But some things will always be the same.
I've been singing since I was two. Music was my first passion and I love writing, singing, creating and being creative.
There's nothing to compare to live music, there just isn't anything.
But the beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.
Children go with whatever makes them feel good - like if that's the color green or orange, they do that with their clothes. As I've grown older, everything reversed. My music, my personality - onstage those things became my colors.
I think, in music, you're always hoping that you'll have a like-minded audience and that the music you like making will appeal to them, too.
I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk.
The biggest thing that I hope people take away when they listen to my music is that they feel that there is an outlet being presented that allows them to be more authentic and for them to be more honest in their own lives.
While it is true that Frank had a great sense of humor, he was also very serious about composing music. In reality there are only a handful of skilled players who can play his most complex pieces. It takes a lot of patience to learn and requires a fantastic memory.
I love all kinds of music.
The bricks and mortar of the music business, they don't exist any longer.
I don't think of my music in terms of a career. I just want to get it out there and do it. I'm not manipulating my sound to be like anybody or trying to write to sound like anybody else.
From the beginning, I wanted to make dance music with a human element to it.
I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.
I don't have any message in the music. Music will be fine as long as you take care of yourself.
The more alone I am, the more focused I can get. I've written things with people, some of which I liked and others I think are total travesties. Collaborating is trying to make a piece of music and get someone else to come up with the ideas. What's the fun of that?
I'm a total hip-hop geek. That's my favorite kind of music to listen to while getting ready.
The great thing about Nashville back in the day was that the old guys hung out where the young guys were. The established writers like Harlan Howard and Jack Clement gave us encouragement and passed the guitar, you know? Chet Atkins let me sit in on his sessions. Everybody was good to us, and everybody loved the music.
The iPod completely changed the way people approach music.
I finished high school, moved to Nashville for college, and set out to break into the music business. Every night when I called home with news of my experiences, my mom and dad would encourage me to keep taking those small steps.
My roots are in classical music and jazz, and I want the freedom of being able to improvise. This freedom is possible only in a live concert.
The most important thing about music that I've learned after all this time is that to me, it's a way of reaching the truth.
Playing with my grandfather, grandmother and my parents, I came to music pretty naturally.
I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising.
I'm sure if we had made an album that was more traditional would have been released immediately. When we actually play this music on stage and people become familiar with it, it will become more popular.
I don't feel like I chose to do music as much as I made a decision to not stop doing music.
I think there's nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock 'n' roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs.
Jazz and Cuba are inexorably tied together; it's not a branch from a tree. Latin music is part of the root of jazz.
Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.
