I played Big Band jazz music. I wasn't into rock and roll. I was just there because it was a living. I surprised everyone. I'm still surprising people.
The problem is the following, black music is increasing encumbered by white elements, often pleasant but always superfluous, easily and advantageously replaced with black elements.
With music, I get to a much darker place. Where I'm able to go with 'Portlandia' has a wider range, but also a brighter range.
When you are accompanied by the instrument - on an instrument like the lute-the lute and voice - you have this sound, and you feel how the music can be so touching and yet so simple.
Taking employment out of the country - now that's taking away jobs. These shows employ a lot of people: production, post-production, music supervisors, camera people. A hundred people or more.
My music is pretty versatile; I have a lot of genres and styles. I don't think I should be pigeonholed into one thing. So we'll see where my career goes.
I enjoy playing the band as the band. I 'be' the whole band and I'm playing the drums, I'm playing the guitar, I'm playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.
I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be.
My first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn't know who was singing what song or who wrote what song.
It takes a real soldier to stay in the music industry and live off the things that have been put before me and be able to survive all this time because it has not been easy.
Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it comes from DJ culture. DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.
The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.
I'm not a very spiritual guy when it comes to music. I remember hearing Carlos Santana say that angels helped him write his songs. And I thought, 'Really, angels?'
Songs used to be short, then they became longer, and now they're getting shorter. But otherwise, music is about a beat and a message. If the beat gets to the audience, and the message touches them, you've got a hit.
I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band.
I don't care much about politics. That kind of witchcraft I stay away from because people end up dead. I'd rather die for music.
It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.
I've given up trying to understand what people think about me. It seems like a lot of people don't like the music we make and don't know me, or something.
My music is how I feel, and that's changed from being twenty years old to being forty-three years old.
I could read music and sing all the right notes at the right time. And over time, I literally found my voice, found a way to make sound.
I've spent a lot of time playing Bach partitas. One of my first jobs was to play for ballet and modern classes, so the music in 'Partita' is kind of like choreography for me.
