Some of the wise boys who say my music is loud, blatant and that's all should see the faces of the kids who have driven a hundred miles through the snow to see the band... to stand in front of the bandstand in an ecstasy all their own.
It's a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That's where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.
Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.
Sapphire: They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts.
Boon: [At the bar in the Negro Dexter Lake Club, Boon turns to face the band] Otis, my man! [Otis pauses singing for a second and peers incredulously at Boon]
After all these years, I'm finally into soccer. The World Cup is on, and my band is an international group - they're all around me, cheering in the hotel bars.
I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.
Pete Townshend is one of my greatest influences. More than any other guitarist, he taught me how to play rhythm guitar and demonstrated its importance, particularly in a three-piece band.
I am Evanescence. I am the only original member. I have basically hired the band. Evanescence has become me. It is mine and it's exactly how I want it to be.
It was a scene in the sense that we were all close and we all knew each other before the different bands had really formed. We used to rehearse in the same place.
I have never done any other job. I have sung in bands since I was 15. I left school completely unqualified. I have no other training.
Never start with a clear idea of storyline. Instead, commence blindly, with a vague notion of trying to include a reference to your favourite band, gift shop, or chocolate bar.
Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point.
At some point I was hanging around with the Butchies - a band I ended up playing with a lot - and it just brought out this thing in me... and it felt very different from the Indigo Girls.
We try and stay out of the corporate side of it. The band has never compromised. At some point in our career we could have made a certain type of record and sold millions of units, as they are called.
When you're used to playing with people, when you're in a band, then you're used to playing with each other. People nowadays aren't used to playing with each other because they don't have to.
I mean, if I was living to please people, I'd have never been in a band at all. I wouldn't have anything awesome around. I'd just be bored.
It's like that with what sort of ideas people outside of the band have of HIM. They all see it through a different lens as well which is beautiful. Hopefully, it makes it an endless topic of conversation.
When I was a lot younger, I did some work with St. Jude's, but then we went on a 'Red Band' tour across the United States, and we went to a bunch of hospitals and had the privilege of meeting kids who are suffering or going through these different si...
What I liked about doing a soundtrack is that it's almost the opposite of any kind of normal recording that a band does, because it's very much a restricted, narrow... And I kind of like that, I find it exciting to work within these things.
There was a period after my first solo album came out that about 50 per cent of my work was with symphonies and big bands. We did the Captain and Tennille as well, but it ended up being about 50-50.
