I know that people don't listen to music much in the way when they'll put on a CD, sit down, have a drink or go on a car journey. People pick and choose and just listen to tracks. But when I make a record, I try to think about it as a 50 minute music...
When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always...
I didn't really hear any other music other than what my dad was working on until I was 12. My recollection of hearing other music was that I liked some things that I heard but I always thought, 'Where's the rest of it?' It didn't have the same amount...
Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music...
If you met my dad, I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But, Coldcut, they're based in the U.K. I'm a big fan of jazz music, so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to.
The real reason we ended up getting into that type of music was our dad worked for an oil company so we spent a year overseas when we were young kids. Because of that, it was all Spanish TV and radio so we ended up having these '50s and '60s tapes, t...
I'm wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, 'I am my musical taste.' I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that's a thing that people romanticize: 'Oh my God, s...
I think rap music is rap music. I mean, are there heavy writing aspects of it? Absolutely. In a sense, is it poetry? Yeah. I've heard that so much, growing up in a house with poetry. But I think people like to use that as a shortcut for who's good an...
If I'm going on any trip, driving music is key. Road Hammers is good driving music. I don't mind listening to my own stuff. You record it for a certain reason. You fall in a love with a certain song at a certain time and how you record it is a labour...
A good interpreter can take a piece of bad music and make it sound pretty decent, while a bad interpreter can take good music and make it sound cheap. I can tell that some people have a bad taste, and unlike on the piano, they smear around a lot, tha...
Genetically, I have tons of musical background in my life. My mother's father was a famous Weimar-era composer, Ernst Toch. My father's mother was the head of the Vienna Conservatory's piano department. It all canceled out in my case. I'm completely ...
I would love to hear all types of Christian artists played all over the world. I'd love to hear good, positive mainstream music played all over the place. I'd love to be able to bring music together. But I have not deserted Christ. I have not deserte...
When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's d...
I've listened to music all my life. I've always felt that music tells more stories sometimes than films, with more possibilities. Every time you listen to them, songs bring different images and moods - depending on where you are in your life, you can...
When we were shooting in Shreveport, me and a couple of friends went down to Lafayette, because they had a big Zydeco music festival down there. We spent two days dancing to Zydeco music, eating fried alligator... It was one of the craziest festivals...
I've looked at pictures that my mom has of me, from when I was four years old at the turntable. I'm there, reaching up to play the records. I feel like I was bred to do what I do. I've been into music, and listening to music and critiquing it, my who...
I played Woodstock in '69, and it really changed my life. Without a doubt, it was the single event that really changed the way I felt about music. Up to that point, I hadn't really thought of myself as more serious musician, and I didn't really have ...
My success set me up for life, and it meant that I could retire from the music industry at 27 to spend time with my newborn daughter and my wife. My time away from the spotlight allowed me to rediscover my love for music, and I'm doing it for me now ...
So many girls come up and say to me, 'I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn't even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I'm obsessed.' That's the coolest compliment to me.
What love is to man, music is to the arts and to mankind. Music is love itself - it is the purest, most ethereal language of passion, showing in a thousand ways all possible changes of color and feeling; and though true in only a single instance, it ...
There are plenty of millionaires who would pay millions to hang a Van Gogh painting on the wall, but hardly one that would have ever had the crazy nut over for dinner. I feel like the big companies are like that with musicians. They'll say, 'We love ...
