I was just reading about Paul Simon in 'Uncut', and it was fascinating. I never think about him much or think about his music or anything, but it's interesting to hear his ideas on stuff.
I'm not an '80s fan. I'm more '70s New York pre-punk kind of thing, and I guess I grew up with '90s grunge, post-punk pop music.
I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.
I've always loved hip-hop, since I was a kid, that's the music that I loved. I think everyone of our generation kind of fantasized about hip-hop in some ways.
I've been looking forward to doing an album, but it's really sad to see how many doors have been closed because of the gay thing. I thought it was about the music.
I can't watch shows like 'The X Factor,' for instance. I just squirm for the people involved, for the way they're being used. It's the cruellest, most ridiculous show on television. It's ruined music, ruined everything.
Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
I don't think that three minutes of music on a commercial record is going to bring paradise, but I feel like there is power in music and power in our words and power in what we put out into the world.
I was kind of going that route with my country music. Indie country. Which would work, if I was playing on Americana stages. Unless I had a television outlet like 'Glee'.
I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music.
I can only speak for myself and my own music, because that is what I am most familiar with, and I write about things that I am living or experiencing.
I listen to a variety of music. The only common point is strong lyrics; I'm more obsessed with lyrics than music. I need to hear a form of truth, and if it's a hard truth, even better.
The only person who really impressed me with making new music is Cudi. Everyone else seems to be jumping on the same music, the producer-made stuff, but the one person that's made new music to me is Cudi.
I don't think of myself as a folk singer per se, but I really like blues and string-band music. When I started listening to records when I was a teenager, the folk boom was going on.
When I have a chunk of time that I can really dedicate to music, I really want to get into it. I want to do some really hard stuff and push myself.
Janis Joplin is definitely one of my biggest influences. She taught me how to feel music, and I don't think there's anyone like her that could bring such pain and emotion to a song.
It was very interesting in my world, because I grew up as a fan and I did not know that there was a thing called R&B, pop, country, classical - I just knew that I loved music.
When I was growing up, music was music and there were no genres. We didn't look at it as country music. Popular music in Tuskegee was country music. So I didn't know it in categories. It was the radio.
Growing up, I didn't really like folk music - I wasn't a fan of Bob Dylan. I grew up mostly listening to rap and hip-hop; it was this new form of music.
I would say I grew up listening a lot to Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland and Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. I grew up listening to those because my parents were kind of into folk music.
I'm really fed up with all the credibility talk. A lot of times it seems to be more important than the music. Well, I guess for a lot of people it actually is. We don't care for credibility.
