I consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist. I try not to talk about something unless it's something I love. But if it's something that really annoys me, I fixate on it, learn something about it and then, when I'm onstage, it comes ou...
The type of music that I love to sing would have to be more bluesy and jazzy and more soul-like 'cause I love to belt when it comes to singing, so I guess bigger songs are what I lean more towards.
I love Logic Audio and have been using it for years. All my track outputs used to come up on my old board in the same order as in the old Mac G4 - 1 through 32, came up as 1 through 32, for instance.
I love running in nature. I don't like running on the streets, I don't like running in the city, I don't like running on the concrete. I love running in nature, so Jamaica provides a lot of that for me.
I'm a big reader. My kids love reading, and I think it's important, not just for development but for bonding. You start reading to kids before they can even understand what you're saying to them, so I look at it as a fundamental tool for connection.
I've always kind of been a little skeptical about bands that won't play their hits. That's really arrogant to me as a music fan. I do want to hear obscure songs, but like most people, I want to hear the hits, so we always play them.
My photography changed from being more documentary-like to arranging things more, and that came into being partly because I started doing music videos, and I incorporated some things from the music videos into my photography again, by arranging thing...
Often times, music is used to evoke an emotion and it's become a cliche, so I don't want to do that, and actually what I do, is that emotional intensity that has developed throughout the film, I allow it to get released by having that music at the en...
The two have to go hand in hand - the atmosphere and the music. I actually get rather worried if I can't see the music first. There always needs to be a mood, a feeling, a story, even if it is abstract. There's got to be a narrative to guide things b...
It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'.
My strength as a singer is my versatility. I find it really frustrating when I'm only expected to show off. The music industry is awash with female acrobats. What happens to the song, and treating it for its sake and not as an ego example?
I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.
I'm no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don't really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same m...
What's interesting is a lot of the older music when we start performing it, it acts a lot like muscle memory. It's kind of like riding a bike. For me as a singer, I just had to remember like what part of my face I sang that into.
I like to think that if it hadn't gone as well as it has, if I wasn't able to make a living off of playing music, I would still be playing the music. But, of course, I wouldn't likely have had the opportunity to travel, and a lot of the places have i...
The music comes first. When Geoff has made something the inspiration comes automatically. His music is very expressive. But still is is a very difficult process: I have to add something to his music, not push it away. It has to be equal, and I find t...
You feel the music needs something but you don't know what. So you start searching, fitting, measuring, trying. Every time you try another angle. And sometimes that's frustrating, especially if you don't come up with something for three days.
Once I was checking to hotel and a couple saw my ring with Blues on it. They said, 'You play blues. That music is so sad.' I gave them tickets to the show, and they came up afterwards and said, 'You didn't play one sad song.'
I was a huge Bowie fan since I was 12 years old. That was the first 'punk' rock I got into in the Seventies. I didn't find out about a lot of the other stuff that was going on, like New York Dolls and Roxy Music, until a lot later.
Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock 'n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So, there's always a new generation with new music.
Country music has changed tremendously, so what now is considered country was not considered country at that time. We were doing stuff that probably could have been called country music today, but would certainly have not have fit in at that time.
