I feel so much more comfortable when I'm working on material which makes other people scratch their heads and ask, 'You're going to make a musical out of that?'
A lot of people on the internet have been saying that there's no way we can pull off a musical in three acts. We just take that as a challenge.
For anybody to say well this is not Hip Hop and that's not Hip Hop, that is not the way the formula was laid down. It was for the people who were going to continue take anything musically and string it along.
I just know so many people who have six or seven foreign languages and have read everything and have musical training and they are still dorks.
A lot of people ask me why I don't expand and explore other musical areas, but I like the plain three- and four-chord rock-and-roll that I call the the semi-blues.
Ever since the Beatles, the concept of lovable mop tops, it's a bit of a fantasy, but it's a lovely idea that people make wonderful music and live a wonderful life being friends together. Sadly, life isn't quite like that.
Playing live is everything. Sometimes being on the road is hard, and it's a lot of work, and tiring. From a musical point of view, you improve all the time. Not only that, but you learn how to deal with people and deal with energy in a live setting.
I should write a musical. That is probably one of the final areas that I should pay attention to, because it does kind of involve everything. It's got theatre, it's got young, pretty people... And it's got money!
It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.
People have taken time out of their day and spent their money to come sit down at a concert. And it's jazz music-it's not easy for them to get to it. I don't want them ever to feel that I'm taking their presence lightly.
Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say 'thank you' after the money has been contributed.
Organized religion and musicals present tenets to live by that don't entirely make sense but, on the whole, make people who believe them secure, thus giving an appearance of inclusiveness.
The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn't be able to do that.
If you can show something as complicated as two people falling in love with just music and camera angles, well, just think about what you can do with football.
I get to go make music, and I get paid to do it, and this is what people love me for. I couldn't ask for anything greater, so how could I not go in the studio and make a million songs?
City people live the city. We live in L.A., New York, we live in places where it's chaotic and you never know what's gonna happen. And that's the music - you never know what's gonna happen.
You just let your lower self go, and then it takes on all these aspects of the society - the city with horns blowing, the people yelling things at each other, and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music, and that's...
I've never got on with the British press because they've always given me such a hard time. Once they build a band up they just want to do people down. They shouldn't concentrate on the colour of someone's shirt they should listen to the music.
I've been a lot of places, and my wife, Denise, she likes a lot of the fancy restaurants. I'm more of a basic eater. I still go into Cracker Barrel. Those are the kind of people who like the kind of music I'm making.
I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.
I do get credit for having a California sound to my music, but I don't think people really know what that means - they think the Beach Boys. I'm thinking more like Sunset Strip in the 1960s and stuff like that.
