So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.
I listen to a lot of different styles of music. So it doesn't have to be just one thing. I prefer it. If it's not, I get bored very easily.
It's not like I'm hanging out at shopping malls or going to celebrity golf tournaments. I'm so in my own little world. I got my dog, my music, my brother, a couple of friends.
Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.
I've always said, I thought the Sex Pistols was more Music Hall than anything else - because I think that really, more truths are said in humour than any other form.
Bob Dylan was the source of pop music's unpredictability in the Sixties. Never as big a record-seller as commonly imagined, his importance was first aesthetic and social, and then as an influence.
The Rolling Stones are violence. Their music penetrates the raw nerve endings of their listeners and finds its way into the groove marked 'release of frustration.'
They had the music being piped right out on the street. I'd be three or four blocks from there and I couldn't get there fast enough because I'd hear old Joe holler them words.
I was just reading about Paul Simon in 'Uncut', and it was fascinating. I never think about him much or think about his music or anything, but it's interesting to hear his ideas on stuff.
I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.
I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop.
Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.
'I don't want to grow up', Tom Waits said it. I live it. I put myself in a position to be a kid as long as I want to. I play loud music and scream for a living.
I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it.
Dick Clark's 'American Bandstand' spread the gospel of American pop music and teenage style that transcended the regional boundaries of our country and united a youth culture that eventually spread its message throughout the entire world.
I was just glad to meet somebody outside of my group of small town friends who was into music. Somebody else who had aspirations to do something more than sing at a record hop.
I keep a guitar around while writing and will improvise music. I do this for several reasons, such as that it's fun, and sometimes it helps me with the meter.
I've always loved hip-hop, since I was a kid, that's the music that I loved. I think everyone of our generation kind of fantasized about hip-hop in some ways.
I've been looking forward to doing an album, but it's really sad to see how many doors have been closed because of the gay thing. I thought it was about the music.
We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners.
I've always loved acoustic music because I've always loved to hear someone's words or just watch them and just get into them. The distancing thing about rock is it's so assaulting.
