There's been people who've rapped and produced - like Kanye - but I don't feel like on the rapping side there's ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap.
If I give myself a chore, for instance, when I was writing the songs for Shameless, I said to myself, Now, every day for 90 days you have to write a song; good, bad or indifferent. So that was really helpful.
I mean the only thing that is hopefully good about us is after the arguments we can actually still face each other the next day or the day after and talk about something else and sort of get over it.
I think we could have done a lot more great music, so I was disappointed that we didn't continue making records and touring, but it's hard to argue with 10 good years.
You need the past as a guideline. The history of music is a good basis, but to escape that stuff, that tortuous rulebook, you have to learn it first. It's kind of like religion - once you've written the Bible, that's it, move on.
The only criticism heard with any frequency of Elton John's first American album, 'Elton John,' was that the production was too grandiose. The melodies were superb, and lyrics frequently very good, and the performances flawless.
I've got an Avalon guitar - that's the company that used to be Lowden. They come out of Ireland, and they're like these folk kind of guitars. You can pick 'em, you can strum 'em - they're quite good.
A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.
Not to be narcissistic, but I truly believe in order to make yourself better, you should see what you did before and what was good about that and what wasn't - same way a football team plays a game and then they go back and watch film.
I'm not good enough to be playin' much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers.
You don't have to have magic unicorn powers. You work at it, and you get better. It's like anything: You sit there and do it every day, and eventually you get good at it.
It's actually great to shoot far away from Hollywood because we don't have the distractions of the parties and premieres and all that. And, of course, you can save money - there are no good shoe stores.
I grew up in Pennsylvania in a small town. Real small, like one high school and one movie theater. Well, there was a state college there, that was the only good thing about it.
Sometimes I gotta look in the mirror and say, 'Hey, they're still saying you're too fat, but you're here! They gotta take it or leave it.' And in most cases, if they leave it, it's all good because they don't need to be in my space anyway.
You don't have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.
When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.
I feel a lot more comfortable being me these days. I'm constantly told that my work is good. A lot of fans and a lot of other artists say my songs and albums mean a lot to them. Isn't that what's important?
For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.
There's always a question of duration, there's a question of who the orchestra is. No one is free to write what you want - you collaborate on a film score, and one of the good things is that someone else's work is motivating you.
My father was a professor of folklore, and my mother was a teacher until she was married. I had a good relationship with them, and the only argument we had was when I went to university and wanted to go into the theater instead of studying to be a la...
Americans are crazy. They have this fascination with throwing their shoes on stage. I've been to a lot of shows in me life, some good and some bad. But I was never moved to take off me shoes and throw it at the lead singer.
