To pay 60 musicians for rehearsal and performance is quite something, and I decided I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of situation financially again, unless somebody else was taking care of that end of it.
I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.
We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.
I don't know if you have ever seen the Woody Allen film 'Annie Hall,' but it is, in a way, to Los Angeles and 'Hollywood' what 'This Is Spinal Tap' is to many musicians.
I never sought out a record deal. It caught me with my pants down. I was just a musician doing my thing, I didn't even send my records out.
Various different people have inspired me throughout my career. From Francis Bacon to Vassareli, Coco Chanel to Christian Dior, Cecil Beaton, musicians, architects... the list is endless.
I'd have no trouble being the barbecue kingpin of America. I'd just add it to all the other things I am: jazz musician, carpenter, architect, engineer and revolutionary.
A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humour will stimulate a like humour in the listener.
It was about working with other musicians, but more than that it's about exploring musical areas that you could never do with the band you're in, in my case Judas Priest. You could tackle musical areas and lyrical areas that wouldn't be appropriate f...
For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane.
It's the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller - writer, musician, filmmaker.
When I went to college, I thought I was going to become a professional musician. I was a French horn player, so I went to Yale to study with a very unusual French horn player.
When I left the band I said Look, I am ready to move on. I was interested in playing with some of the other people that I had bee a studio musician with.
Some musicians play blues, others classical jazz or bluegrass. I like to play political roles because I can merge my political interests with my creative interests.
In a jazz atmosphere, the audience members were so quiet and respectful of the musicians that you felt you were almost part of a meeting at a church or a temple, where everyone was completely in tune with the sermon and what the whole event was about...
What the world is saying to us human beings is, 'Don't stick to the old ways, learn to think anew.' And that's what musicians do every day.
It's a weird thing where, especially in jazz, you have to totally mention cutting sessions and people one-upping each other and people being super, super tough on each other. And out of it emerge these genius musicians.
I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.
I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema.
You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here's this vital energy, and that element doesn't even know it exists!
Part of me believes that the completed record is the final measure of a pop musician's accomplishment, just as the completed film is the final measure of a film artist's accomplishments.
