About Del Shannon: Del Shannon is best known for his 1961 No. 1 billboard hit "Runaway".
I usually write when I'm in a great place. When I'm depressed, I don't usually write. So I take all of when I'm depressed and throw it into when I'm feeling good. Weird, I guess.
I was an outcast growing up with a bunch of Christian people. My father didn't go to church, and that was not good news if you lived right in the middle of it.
I laughed at Willie Nelson, wondering why he spends all his life on that tour bus. And I look at myself, and I'm sitting in airplanes half the time.
I love to perform. But I don't like the traveling.
When I was 20, I was drinking. When I was 30, I was drinking more, and at 40, way too much.
I saw I could rhyme words. It came simply to me. But I wrote some pretty horrible songs that I still have on tape.
I do me, and me is my hits. I'm out there really to satisfy the people.
There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.
If it's a whole show of my own, I'll do more of what I think Del Shannon is. But for shows like Disneyland, I'll just do mainly hits. That's what they want to hear. I don't want to bore people. If I wanted that much to play nothing but 12 new songs, ...
Nobody thinks mystery writers go around killing people, but they always seem to assume singers are singing about themselves, especially if you write melancholy songs like me.
I eat ice cream. It's better than booze.
