I've had a very, very interesting view of the planet over the last 30 years, touring as excessively as I have. And music is the most evocative, transformative, connective force in humanity, man.
If I put a value on my music, and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan; it can't work.
I play music a lot but on my own mostly, so it was nice to be around other people. There was a certain sense a relief in the physical act of just playing and being with other musicians.
When I was young, people were almost identified solely by the kind of music they liked. People fell into categories of who liked what.
Memphis is the place where rock was born and Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. It's full of contradictions, abject poverty, and riches that only music can provide.
After all my years of doing instrumental music I still like just a simple instrumental song with a nice catchy melody and an opportunity to play a solo over a harmonic structure.
My favorite moment of the whole thing was when John Belushi suggested that I get a hold of all the blues records I could so I could research the music.
I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.
My music is so often like a lullaby I write to myself to make sense of things I can't tie together, or things I've lost, or things I'll never have.
I don't do much press. I don't like to talk about my music too much before I do it.
I've pretty much run the circle of labels and dealing with that whole kind of battle, because you're the one creating the music, but you're not the final say. That's always been hard.
The classics are only primitive literature. They belong to the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine.
If you have music you want to play that no one asks you to play, you have to go out and find where you can play it. It's called do or die.
In the '90s, the radio was still alive with all different kinds of points of view, and I think that's why people are longing for that time. It was the first time that alternative music broke through to the mainstream.
Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing.
As far as spiritual influences in Christian music, I would say Crystal Lewis - a lot of her songs especially. The ministry she has through her songs has really hit me.
Every one of us has a response of some kind to music, so I don't think it's fair to ever judge what is proper and what's not.
I got along with mostly everyone, but music school does that to you. We had to sing in a choir all the time, so we had to get along with everyone.
I only listen to my own music when I'm playing an hour-and-half set each night. I don't put it on recreationally.
Getting things straight in your head is a major achievement because there's so much clutter out there. You've got to push aside the static to really hear the music.
I am interested in things happening around me, and I need to understand what's going on in other artistic sectors like music and literature.
