It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of, they didn't play power chords, they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs.
I'm really interested in social justice, and if an artist has a certain power of being heard and voicing something important, it's right to do it. It could still be done in such a way that it's not aggressive or overly didactic. I'm trying to find th...
Religion and political cartoons, as you may have heard, make a difficult couple, ever since that day of 2005, when a bunch of cartoonists in Denmark drew cartoons that had repercussions all over the world - demonstrations, fatwa, they provoked violen...
I can sort of do what I want. Maybe I have to work harder to prove myself in some new relationship because they've heard some wacky stories about me. But at least I can get the meeting.
Privacy is something I have come to respect. I think when I was younger I wanted to tell everybody everything, because I thought I was so damn interesting. Then I heard the snoring.
I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.
I believe in what I believe, and I think after all these years I've heard a lot of arguments, and I'm convinced by the superiority of the arguments that are made on the conservative side. I think that's a better way to run a society.
I've always liked Saturn. But I also have some sympathy for Pluto because I heard it's been downgraded from a planet, and I think it should remain a planet. Once you've given something planetary status it's kind of mean to take it away.
It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'.
I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.
I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself, in a sense, in the mid 1960s really, when I first heard composers like Terry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders.
Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.
What I'm making music for now is more similar to what I was doing in the beginning. In those days it was all about doing music so when people heard it in a club it would take their minds of their worries. I got more artistic but now I've gone back to...
I think 'Horace Silver' was actually the first live jazz group I ever heard back when I was a kid in St. Louis. So along with most players of my generation, I have a real affection for the music of 'Horace Silver.'
You can pick songs that sound like hits, but if it's not something that somebody wants to tell their friends, 'Hey man, have you heard this song?' then I don't think it's worth it. The only way to get your music out there, is for someone to tell thei...
I grew up doing musical theatre in Orlando, Florida. When I was 14, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time - a deliveryman heard me singing and offered to deliver my demo tape to Sony Music. I was just really lucky.
I heard Q-Tip on the Jungle Brothers' song 'The Promo.' It was very exciting. It was very new. The music and the culture around hip-hop was evolving. I think there's an emotional quality to their music and there's a vulnerability to the music. For me...
The music I heard growing up, since there was no TV or cinema or record covers, I didn't know if it was black, white, hip, square, male, female... whatever. I'd hear melodies and things and got intrigued on that level.
I don't know what Swiss musicians need to do to be heard beyond the borders of their own country. It was always clear to me that I belong everywhere, that music belongs everywhere. It simply never occurred to me that I had to limit myself to a countr...
I mention this fact as tending to support what I have often heard stated, namely, that a shark's sense of smell is so keen that, if men ever bathe in seas where they are found, a shark is almost sure to appear directly afterwards.
I didn't understand that I could sing until I was like 11 or 12. My mom heard me singing around the house and she said, What are you doing? You really can sing! So then I started going to school and singing to the girls.
