I can't watch shows like 'The X Factor,' for instance. I just squirm for the people involved, for the way they're being used. It's the cruellest, most ridiculous show on television. It's ruined music, ruined everything.
I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.
My second record I used a producer, which was frustrating in a way, because I think a lot of the punky spirit and provocative nature of the lyrics didn't come across - the music was pretty.
But there are rock and roll fans all over this continent and all over the globe, really, and we're just set at marking the planet with Styx music until the day we die.
Seeing our VH-1 Behind the Music shows just how dysfunctional some of the moments of the band were but this new line-up has put the fun back in dysfunction.
Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.
Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
I'm just going to go out there, and if people want to put me on the front of their magazine or whatever, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine as well. I'm just going to go out there and make my music.
Once I accomplish one thing and I'm satisfied, I try something else. I may be 50 and doing something totally outside of music and acting. Maybe I'll become a kindergarten teacher.
I started growing my audience in small clubs through word-of-mouth. I started making music that isn't necessarily commercially viable, and it's not necessarily marketable to my peers to a certain extent.
There are people that bring artists to me to look at it and it's a question of whether I like their music and their look and if I think there's something they have that makes them different and commercial.
I just started as a part of the public school music program. I took lessons at the school every Friday and was a part of the school band. I was just a normal kid taking instrumental lessons at school, nothing special.
The band projects just took natural priority. I didn't really have a solo career, just wanted to share the music in another way and to learn more about writing, recording, etcetera.
My songs are all about celebrating poignant music. While some of them focus on fun and revelry, they are fortunately backed by powerful lyrics. Put together, the lyrics, tune and my voice strive to take the songs to the next level.
A lot of people who have been perceiving my music have been trying to formulate a genre for it, and I think it's just a natural thing; it doesn't need to be categorized. It doesn't need to be sectioned, if you will.
There's a vulnerability in music but you've also got to protect your sacred place and have a place you can still retire to that no one else knows about. So that's a thing I just try to balance.
People ask who I am as an artist, who I am as a person. I don't ever want to tell them who I am; you can find that out in the music.
This band is a real collaboration, and I'm greatful to anybody who can appreciate our music. It doesn't have to be a certain kind of fan or person or anything. I think there's a little bit of something for everybody on this record.
If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.
Bringing people together is one of my favorite things... I believed that's what a rock 'n' roll Jesus would really do - bring people together through music.
I studied communications, only because I could get my own show on the campus radio station. I never thought of it as a career. Music was always a really passionate hobby - it was like collecting DVDs or stamps.
