I always seem to have a vague feeling that he is a Satan among musicians, a fallen angel in the darkness who is perpetually seeking to fight his way back to happiness.
Whenever I felt happy about having discovered something, the first encounter, not only with the public, with other musicians, with specialists, etc, was that they rejected it.
Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life.
You can have all sorts of relationships, but there's something with musicians working together where you can have relationship that can just continue to grow in a beautiful way.
Of course, there are many, many musicians whose music gives me pleasure, but until I make contact with them, musically or personally, I never assume that anything wonderful will happen.
On Eye of the Zombie, I had so-called studio musicians.
New York musicians rarely have the time for idle chat and conversation after a gig. Despite popular assumption of our scintillating after-hours, that illusion is overtaken by the constant hustle to juggle a part-time or full-time job, a myriad of errands, a second or third gig of the day, and perhaps a child or two somewhere.
I was interested in music and making movies about musicians, but my own experiences, and doing what it felt like for me to be a drummer? Nah, I wasn't interested in that.
Oberst is one of those musicians that some people hate in a visceral, biological way.
Musicians always come off sounding a little bit pretentious, and a little bit... I don't know, hypocritical, from what they do, talking about strong issues.
When you're listening to radio and hear the same 20 songs over and over and over, you want a break from it. Sometimes you don't want to hear something that sounds just like everything else on the radio. Eventually, if you hear the same sounds and the same musicians and the same mixes and all of that, it will start to sound like elevator music.
When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.
If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.
I have a feeling a lot of the records I grew up listening to and the records I still like, as hard as musicians worked making them, I feel like they were really enjoying what they were going through. They weren't just going through the process. You can tell that with certain things that you listen to.
At the art college in Edinburgh someone arranged for some London groups to come up and play. I was in a supporting band, with Bernie Green I think. Derek Bailey was one of the visiting musicians. He seemed to like my playing and asked me to come down to London.
Conductors make too much fuss about conductors! Humility and hard work are virtues. We're nothing without our musicians.
I'm glad about what's happening to the music business. This last crop of people we had in the 90s, who are going away now, they didn't like music. They didn't trust musicians. They wanted something else from it.
A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It's an individual-feel thing, you know?
I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.
Well there is a lot of work here for younger and older musicians now. Our Ministry of Culture has now really embarked on changing things for artists, and it is getting much better. We just have to organize ourselves as artists, and then things will be better.
There's a reason I moved to NYC, and if I listed all the musicians on my list you'd grow weary.
I'm not a big fan of lead vocalists, people who sing but don't play. I never wanted to be in a band where the guy who was up front just sang. I've always thought it better when one of the musicians sings, like Steve Winwood.
Broadcast radio was entering its own golden age during the Depression, with live programming on stations all through the day. Local stations needed singers, musicians, announcers, and whipcord personalities, along with Christian clergy to give prayers and pundits to speak on world affairs.
It's a radical time for musicians, a really revolutionary time, and I believe revolutions like Napster are a lot more fun than cash, which by the way we don't have at major labels anyway, so we might as well get with it and get in the game.
The Blues scene now is international. In the '50s it was purely something that you would hear in black clubs, played by black musicians, especially in America. But from the '60s onwards it changed.
I don't know what's more embarrassing, these musicians and actors talking about politics in interviews or the media actually giving them credibility about it. It's absurd that a celebrity could speak out on the economy or politics with no more justification than a hit album or a movie.
I was afraid the other musicians might want to present themselves too much, though I see in the coverage I've received of the album that the musicians got wonderful reviews for their contributions and abilities. I think the four musicians played freely within my limits.
Musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever's going on in that particular culture. It's the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something and watch the scenery around you.
I sat in at every club in New York City, jamming with musicians, because it felt right - and because it felt right and we were having fun - the people dancing and sipping their drinks in the clubs felt it too and it made them smile.
A lot of people think that punk rock musicians don't know what they're doing.
The true beauty of music is that it connects people. It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers.
That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.
My dad took me to all the best rock and punk shows when I was growing up and music has always been a part of my life. So I'm very interested in the music scene and I suppose that's why I've ended up going out with musicians. Dave Pirner is still one of my best friends.
I think musicians have always been drinking and sharing a good wine. It is, I hate to say this, another form of vice.
Every musical movement that is big enough has to produce some good musicians who wouldn't have had the incentive to start playing without it.
You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.
