I actually may do a musical next year... not one that I've written; one that I may star in. Plus my concert and other people's work and all of a sudden you've got a very full life.
I wanted to feel like an artist for once in my life. I wanted to use other producers for respect, to let them know that I listen to other people's music and that I'm just not out here on my own page.
I live my life and play my music, and I don't really seek out other people's approval or accolades or things like that. I try to do what's true to me, and how it all comes out is fine.
We're all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I've had it a lot better than most people. I've had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.
When I first started making music, it was learning other people's songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.
When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of...
In one of my songs, I say fame is nothing more than loving someone. So I'm grateful every day that there's so many fans of people out there that love my music and feel they're connected to me through that.
People always accuse me of being motivational in a way, like it was a bad thing, but that's just how I was raised. My mom raised me in a positive environment, with lots of love in my heart, and that reflects in my music.
So what I'm trying to say is from a musical aspect for anybody to say that whatever they're doing in Florida is not Hip Hop or whatever they're doing in LA is not Hip Hop, who are these people to say that?
(...) The new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Specch, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.
You know, every country needs another country to mock, and Australians seem to be pretty good at impersonating American people. Maybe it's because all the movies and music and TV you see there is from America, so we just have the knack for it.
I understand why it's hard to pin me down because I really relate to so many things. Like, for example, when people ask me what's my favorite music, I can't tell them. I love everything.
Max: He's got to at least *pretend* to work with these people. You must convince him. Maria: I can't ask him to be less than he is.
It's the coolest part about writing music. I don't know how other people work, but so much is derived from some amalgamation of all these different songs that I love. That's why they jump all over the place.
The paradox is that I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make, and I believe it has an important place. Others do, too, and the thousands of people with Morrissey tattoos certainly proves something.
When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love.
I think every revolutionary act is an act of love. Every song that I've written, it is because of my desire to use music as a way to empower and re-humanize people who are living in a dehumanizing setting. The song is in order to better the human con...
I've always kind of been a little skeptical about bands that won't play their hits. That's really arrogant to me as a music fan. I do want to hear obscure songs, but like most people, I want to hear the hits, so we always play them.
Frankly, I think that's something that black people in America have often done - finding ways under very, very difficult circumstances to be subversive, but also to push things forward. And I think that applies to music. I think it applies to dance. ...
When you don't have a record label and you have been on your own as we have, you can look at all these other ways you can get in touch with other people and get music out there again.
I am quite a romantic person, really, and I should have put that into my music earlier, but I was probably denying it... I didn't want to be soft because I felt I had to be so hard to get people to believe in me.
