Usually I can hear the pianos, the saxophone, and usually I can hear Ronnie. But I really need to listen to Keith and Mick. The rest of the band is sort of an embellishment to that.
My first place in Nashville was like 'Animal House.' The whole band lived under one roof, and most nights the jam sessions ended close to sunrise.
Obviously the biggest change is that it's me by myself. When you don't have another band interpreting your songs or playing them the way that they have, it's bound to sound different.
There are people hell-bent on the idea that we're a Christian band in disguise, and that we have some secret message. We have no spiritual affiliation with this music. It's simply about life experience.
It's a 360-degree sound experience. Like you're in the middle of the band. A lot of people have the technology to play the format, so why not put it out there. It sounds great.
For me, my awkward phase corresponded to an interest in rock n' roll. From experience, I'm guessing an insecure childhood is probably quite a common thing among people who start a rock band.
Trying to get my music performed live by bar bands was a self defeating experience. It really just distracted me from what I should've been doing all along, writing and recording.
If you are any competent musician, if you have creative ideas, ideas of songs, of arrangements, in a band like the Stones, where these 2 people do all the things, there is no freedom.
If one more 'journalist' makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans' help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech.
I don't think there's any way it could have failed. We don't know failure in this band. We didn't know failure. We got to know it a little after awhile but at that time there was no such word.
People just don't laugh when their family is violated, and you don't shrug it off. You band together and you defend together. It's a funny, primitive instinct.
And I look forward to the time when I can become more indulgent with my songwriting. But this band is a family, and it's a process that we have to grow with together.
This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.
Stand-up don't get no respect - it's the hardest thing to do in show business. You don't have no band and there's no music.
Festivals are great because you get to just walk around the corner and see a new band that you've heard but not had the chance to check out.
We used to play the underground clubs like the UFO, and Middle Earth, and they were great because they would have on things like a poet, string quartets, and then a rock band! It was kinda cool!
My band is so dedicated, everybody works very hard. The No. 1 priority is the show, and it's pretty cool because we all pull together, and it's fun. It's like being on a sports team or something.
If I was just in one band, I would have a problem with the amount of time between records because I don't want to wave one flag. I just want to be part of something cool.
Music's been with me from the get-go. It was always around me as a kid. Dad got me my first guitar when I was 11 and, at school, if you wanted to be cool you had to be in a band.
When I went to shows with my friends, it was all about the experience with my friends. If I met the band, it was cool. But it was more about talking about the memories of the show with my friends.
If your album sells, that's cool, more people find out about you, more people get turned on to what we're really about-which is a live rock and roll band.
