Listening to music for me is like homework. Music will give me enjoyment, but as soon as it's giving me that enjoyment, I want to analyse it, and then it becomes work. Why does it sound like that? How?... then I dissect it.
You would probably think that rock music is an urban phenomena, but the main reason for doing it in '68 was so that we could play music very loud any time of the day or night without getting complaints from the neighbours.
I knew what I wanted to be, but I didn't know exactly how to get there. I thought you move to Nashville, you sing downtown, and someone discovers you, and you become a country music star. I had no idea.
Hopefully, there's a place in music for Tinted Windows. If we're really trying to be iconic, we should just stop right now. If one of us could die, that would also help. But I don't think anybody wants that gig.
The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar... whatever it is.
I'm influenced by all kinds of music. I have a very diverse iPod. You never know if I've got it on shuffle. You never know what you are going to hear next. I like all genres.
They told me that they are starting a classic label, and wanted me to be the first artist. So I signed, and am producing myself, and writing my own music, but I'm their first artist on their classic label. And I have creative control.
This is just strictly me wanting to make a record that is the real deal. It is all the stuff that I have learned and know that I remember. It's what I perceive as country music is about.
Well, more than me saying to the rest of the country music industry there is not enough traditional country music - that is not necessarily the statement in truth. I think more so that I, me, missed it more than anything else.
I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole 'enigmatic artist' thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.
Once you've changed who you are or who you've portrayed in your music, the fans, they'll catch it... Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.
I have a room dedicated to music and recording. I go there first thing in the morning and just before I go to bed. And it has a window to my street, so I can watch all the crazies walking by.
Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.
Getting sequestered and not really knowing what to do with your time and then discovering, 'Oh, I can watch a bunch of horror movies' has probably played out in a lot of people's discovery of horror.
I think a lot of self-identity and inner-personal development is hampered by consumerism and capitalism because we see ourselves as a reflection of the TV, rather than as a reflection of the people who are around us, truly.
The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.
I think most of the people, once you see a Kiss show, you kinda get spoiled because I don't think there's anybody out there that's doing a bigger or a better show than us.
We live in an increasingly sophisticated world that makes it difficult to make simple comments on stuff. There are too many people on both sides of the border who are taking advantage of circumstances and the situation.
Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people.
People were talking about songs of the common man in order to make the common man. With Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, they were so common it was just uncommon.
I have never done any other job. I have sung in bands since I was 15. I left school completely unqualified. I have no other training.
