For me, Venezuela is very important, not just because it's a place I go to conduct, but because my family is there - my wife, my parents and my musical family.
I grew up playing music and enjoying good food, friends and family in my own backyard.
That's the beauty of music. You can take a theme from a Bach sacred chorale and improvise. It doesn't make any difference where the theme comes from; the treatment of it can be jazz.
But the beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.
For two thousand years, the Church has guided the development of music, carefully legislating to fuse artistic talent and aesthetic beauty with the demands of the Faith.
What is so refreshing playing with Neil Finn and all his friends is these people think exactly the same - regular people doing their thing and separating the music from the business.
It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style.
My whole life I've played music for my own personal enjoyment and the idea of it becoming a machine or a business is just horrible.
The kids of today have taken over the music business - most of them very young. Simply because they write and jot down a few notes, they have the idea that they can write songs.
I learned that instead of relying on and imitating American music, there is a better chance for an Asian artist to succeed if he or she follows his or her own culture.
I enjoy being on stage with other artists. I have a chance to watch and see people responding to the other artists songs. I get to see how people are affected by the music.
They use all of the music that I did in the '50s, '60s and the '70s behind people like Tupac and LL Cool J. I'm into all that stuff.
The blues is the foundation for a lot of things. Things have branched off. It's cool how music grows, but the foundation is always there. It's not going anywhere. The blues is always going to be relevant.
I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.
Now, everybody knows my music. So that's really cool. A lot of kids know it. Now, when I go to a sports game, everybody knows my name.
It's really hard for actors to cross over and get any respect as a singer, and if I could just keep it separate and not use my music in movies, it's cool.
Rock musicians, and a vast array of popular-music musicians, due to their wealth, acquired through the mass of their notoriety, are able to be listened to and heard and thus are able to effect change on an international level.
Writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from.
I'm a country singer. I love all kinds of music, but country is where my loyalty lies. That's just me and what I do, and I'm not going to change it.
Sports and music are the same thing to me. When done wrong, they are really frustrating; when done right, they can change your day.
I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop.
