One of the reasons I didn't ever pursue a career - in the music world if you're black or mixed, you need to be able to belt a song or else you're not a singer, you know?
I had been in a band in college. You kind of need to make a choice between going the music route or going the acting route. I chose acting, figuring I could always do the music on my own.
'Nashville' songs and country music have always been about storytelling and about the heart and confessionals. They're monologues.
Music critics are part of the world, and I am part of the world.
By the late '80s, I was already giving up on rap music.
If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to direc...
My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I'd play 'em over and over.
I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.
I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
There's the Bacon society, which is fostered by his fourth wife Helen Bacon, but I don't know what kind of performances his music gets. He wrote symphonic music and some chorale music.
What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.
If I had to give up reading or give up listening to music, I suspect I'd stick with the music.
The Sixties were different in an isolated place. We got two television channels if the wind was blowing in the right direction. The radio stations went off at sundown. Then you picked up Chicago and heard the teenage music you really yearned for.
It always helps me connect with characters, to think about what music they respond to.
I do the same things I did when I was 12 years old: I ride bikes, I read books, I walk in the woods. And I listen to music.
When you start playing music when you're quite young, it's easy to stay young. And then you're touring, and you see people who've been on the road for 10 or 15 years and they just haven't grown up at all.
My son always says I like very weird music.
It's like my parents' musical tastes are the mother and father of my music. It's their fault for making me so emotional and in tune with my emotions!
I studied audio engineering at university. The background I am from, music was never seen as a viable career; it was always a hobby.
I have an addictive personality. I was addicted to computer games... and then all that obsessive nature just piled into music.
I think you can move to everything, but with some music, you just want to sit still. That's me, anyway.
