My favorite bands were Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad. If you listen to some of my early music, you can hear it.
'Climb Every Mountain' is a beautiful statement of philosophy. Critics may think 'The Sound of Music' is saccharine, but I think it's profound. The message, that we can't accommodate evil, is just as important today.
I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are music'd out.
And for REO - they get to play for some Styx fans and then we get to play in front of some REO fans. It helps spread the new music to the following of other bands.
I used to look at composing music as problem solving. But as I get older, it's not about problem solving anymore. There are no solutions, because there are no problems. You just turn the tap and it flows out.
I think all groups who don't fit in clearly with Western music have to think, 'How can I expand my market? Where else can I perform?'
I think it's almost a law of nature that there are only certain things that hit an emotive space, and that's what was always special for me about music: it made me feel something.
Most experiences are either sensual or intellectual. Chamber music, played by a small group so the listener can follow what each player is doing, is both.
The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made.
I have to play as much of the game as I allow myself to get the music heard. But it's not unlike the rest of the world, so I'm not as up in arms about it as I could be.
Music companies and buyers are not too encouraging towards independent musicians. Everyone wants to play safe and go with established names, but unless one breaks this routine, no new talent will come and survive.
We want our music to reach everybody, so we're using the Internet. Every kid today is online, and we want to make sure our songs reach every one of them.
I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around.
I'm depressed when I don't get to do music. Having to go back to doing something I don't like and am not passionate about would be a tough thing.
All I can do is focus on staying true to the style of music I write and sing because that is the only way it's going to come off as honest.
When I was little and I was introduced to Led Zeppelin, I didn't know what a zeppelin was or who Zeppelin was or what the machine was. The real meaning is whatever feelings and memories you attach to the music.
I would like to do a music person's story, a bio. I've wanted to do Aaliyah forever. But I don't want it to always be like, 'I'm singing again in a movie.'
When I was growing up listening to music, it was 2004, when The Starting Line and Finch and The Used were kind of my favorite bands.
People don't listen to terrestrial radio. They don't find their music that way. They don't get their news that way. They go to blogs. They go through Sirius/XM. They go through all these different places.
My interest in his new toy, the Theremin, isn't very big. It simply does not fit into my way of playing music. I do not want to fiddle around with my hands in the air.
Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.
