I feel I've been blessed with a gift of creativity and composition. That's why I've been able to keep going.
I'm a Top 40 record guy. I remember the hits and don't remember the flops. Something in my brain blocks them out.
Seventy percent of what I write, I throw out. I can write very easily, but writing original things is the hard bit.
When Peter Gabriel left, we obviously lost a very strong stage performer. Phil hasn't replaced him; Phil's done a different thing.
I would feel horrible to think I had put my name on a pistol permit and allowed someone to carry around a gun and they committed another crime.
Basically, any time you have a real life experience, that can be a song. Because no matter how crazy or weird you are, somebody's had an experience just like you, somewhere.
Well I'm a third-generation musician. My Grandfather's a musician and my father and mother were both musicians and so I'm a musician. It was just natural that I should be a musician 'cause I was born into the family.
My father had a brilliant scholastic record in high school and was awarded a college scholarship. Unfortunately he had to turn it down so that he could continue to support his family.
They're keeping friction going between people from the East and the West. One thing we all got in common is your color, which is Black and Latino, which is our family.
My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.
Hence my obstinate emphasis on stylistic continuity from work to work rather than specific sibling relationships between the individual work and other members of its stylistic 'family' in the world outside.
Growing up, my family struggled to make ends meet, so I know how important organizations like The Salvation Army are for families to lean on in times of need.
I always tell people, 'Coming from such a big Mexican family when there's a new baby every three weeks, you have to do something to get someone's attention.'
When I was a young man, I shined the shoes of Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan! Music was just everywhere like that. And in my family, everyone could play something, and if they couldn't play, they could sing.
The perfect winter's night for me would be with all the family together. As you get a little older and everybody has their jobs and then families and kids, it definitely becomes harder to get everybody together at once.
My whole family has been such a great support, and they're the ones who have kept me grounded and allowed me to be who I am today.
Mozart often wrote to his family that certain variations or sections of pieces were so successful that they had to be encored immediately, even without waiting for the entire piece to end.
'I Know You Care' is really personal and fragile for me. For me, it's about losing a family member and also about a breakup. It's about this idea of losing someone for good.
I've been thinking about Jesus. Don't you find it a bit strange that, since He was living with His family and all, He up and left them just when they needed him most?
I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family. I have a wonderful relationship with my brother and sister; this makes me feel that I know always where I belong.
I didn't do anything differently than what my father was doing. It's a really hard family to rebel in. I could have become an accountant. Or I could have become a Republican.
