I love dressing up. I like going out and buying some crazy stuff. I like stuff that's new, innovative and weird. I just pick out stuff that is unique and anything that I'm really diggin'. I don't really care if it's kind of out there. That's what I'm...
I love the smell of a theater. The old rooms and the carpet and all that stuff. I love to tell stories. Even before I was doing music, I saw myself as a director. So most of my songs come in a play form, you know, where there are characters and stori...
The one big difference between the sexes is that I think women are always looking for love. We want more security and to be heard. Men don't care if you hear them or not; they just say what they have to say and leave it to you if you want to listen. ...
I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. ...
I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music, if thought of as a language, would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that...
I know for a fact that if I could do only music, I'd be out of my mind, insane. I'd be stressed-out; there's so much work. I mean, you work constantly; there are no breaks, really. If you're not promoting a record, you're making one. If you're not ma...
Personally, I've realized that the tradition I thought of as too safe, too pretty, and too conventional is the space where women have been able to gain some practical ground. The area of music where we thought the status quo was really being upset - ...
I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose pers...
There's always so much music around me now, it seems like everything has to be something with music, so in my spare time I try not to listen to anything. It's so hard for me to listen to something without trying to see a benefit in it: 'Maybe I'll ma...
I spent all of my twenties feeling very angsty about trying to make a difference. I wanted to establish a touring circuit that would revolutionize the way subculture music was received in China. But now I'm older, and I don't feel as strongly about h...
The music that I make is built on layers upon layers of musical ideas. I want to keep it fun and fresh to where listeners won't get everything from just one listen. They can go back to it months, weeks, or even years later and hear something that the...
Man, 2013, I would expect an album from B.o.B and a Rock EP as well. My Rock EP is like... I take pride in my work and I'm not going to do something just to say that I can do it if I ain't really passionate about doing it. I'm very passionate about m...
I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big...
I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn't want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. 'Discreet Music' was like that, and 'Music for Airports.' What you hear o...
I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother's aunt who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jeff...
At the end of the day, I want to spend time with my daughter, and this schedule enables me to do that while still having fun hosting '106 & Park.' I'm not really eager to get back into music just yet; I'm really eager to get into another movie before...
The iPod is a proprietary integrated product, although that is becoming quite modular. You can download your music from Amazon as easily as you can from iTunes. You also see modularity organized around the Android operating system that is growing muc...
If you are too overwhelmed, then when you sit down and try to write something, it feels forced. There's nothing worse than forced music. I mean, this world has enough of that right now, where it's basically McDonald's making music. 'Everybody needs a...
I grew up poor in crappy situations... various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thom...
I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean...
I'm a little jaded when it comes to certain kinds of music. I'm much more drawn to a vocalist than what's going on musically. A singer like Nick Cave or Mark Lanegan, his voice draws me in. If you go back to Johnny Cash or Billie Holiday, they tell a...