People have made a living deconstructing Lennon and The Beatles songs because of their compositional sophistication. But what's so exciting about John is that he never had any of that training on musical theory; something just spoke to him, and he ju...
The guitar is such an incredible instrument; it plays classical, flamenco, jazz, country, bluegrass, rock, acid, blues. You'll never see a clarinet playing Black Sabbath. But you will see a guitar in a clarinet band playing rhythm. It is the most pop...
When you're 17 and you have an idea, people don't really listen to you. I came out of an environment where my parents were always pushing me to do what I wanted and be creative, and I was not used to the industry's way of thinking.
I'd been listening to some old '70s disco, soul stuff, and I thought, 'Let's go into the studio and do something different. Let's do something that's super unashamedly pop and fun and danceable.' 'Trouble' is what we did. It's something that wrote it...
I was kind of known as a ballad singer. People would send ballads. Some of them would go over my shoulder and float off the top of my head, and I just didn't feel anything. Then I would hear a song that would absolutely shake me.
What a fine line there is between artistry and insanity. There's no formula for it, and I think a lot of people when they're around you - even those closest to you - when you're in that whirl of creativity and you're grabbing those things out of the ...
I pay less attention to my hair then probably anybody that I know. I get out of the shower, I towel dry it. I, like, blow it off and then I just run my hands through it and away we go. It's just what it is.
I think being a mum gives you extra qualities. I'm more feisty, fiercely protective and less selfish. The main trait I want to instill in my kids is kindness. I think it's the most important thing. If you're kind, you'll go a long way.
Growing up, we didn't have anything. My mum wasn't well, so I was in three care homes then foster homes before me and my little brother went back to her. I was passed from pillar to post.
Some of my first teachers were incredibly tough. You could never sing more than three words without being stopped and having to do it over 20 times. I loved that - that sort of process of dissecting and trying to figure out and master this incredibly...
I've always written a little bit. I mean, I've written screenplays, and I've doctored my dialogue for years, and I've written speeches - I was a speechwriter on 'The West Wing,' so I like that kind of thing. But I never really thought I'd write a boo...
I was running track early in my years and I was breaking track records in sprint running. I was training and I wanted to be in the Olympics. I thought I was going to be able to win a gold medal, and my mind was pretty much set on 'this is what I want...
You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even w...
I don't speak Spanish. I've done Spanish 1 and 2 classes. My grandma asked me when I was young if I wanted to learn Spanish, and I guess I was young. I should have, because it would have helped me a lot.
Putting a stamp on things just helps you say, 'Hey, yesterday I was there, and today I'm here.' It's another step forward, and it feels like another turning point and an unleashing of creativity, and now I'm going to start focusing on the show and th...
I like the fact that we have all the teams in the tournament. When I first got here as an assistant, not everyone made the tournament and I think as a coach, you look at it from a job security standpoint, I think that hurt when you didn't have everyb...
I think I've grown a lot in the last few years, and I needed to express myself as an artist on this. It wasn't necessarily about going in and making an album chocked full of hit singles... there were a lot of things I did out of the joy and the want ...
I do have very solid reggae roots based on the fact that I'm Jamaican, and so that is a part of myself; even if I never do all reggae, it has to come out in some way because that's who I am.
Then I have a head mounted display which actually was designed for the military to do synchronized building entries and that's looking down at my hands, so projected on the big screen behind me, you can see my hands as I'm putting the tracks together...
I was so afraid to go out west to my aunt's ranch. But the only choice my mother gave me was to go for two weeks or all summer. I wound up staying all summer. And that's where I learned about cattle. I could relate to their behavior, their fears.
Hanson has rapid female fans, which I'm completely proud of, but a lot of fans are a contingent that have grown up with us really - our peers. There's younger fans. More and more guys are Hanson fans, musicians or kind of guys who were into a Beatles...
