That’s my contribution – running a sound, healthy company that serves millions of customers well and employs hundreds of thousands of people. What else am I going to do? I’m not an artist. I’m not a writer. I’m not a musician. I’d love to be a tennis player or musician. I’m not.
The deeper I get into my life as a musician, I’m discovering that it becomes less and less about other people, and more about what I want to do. And that’s a good place to be.
The only thing I have ever really cared to be known as is a musician.
Then certainly for a musician timing becomes something that is immediately accessible as a concept, because it’s a necessity in ones everyday performance.
When you’re a touring musician, you’re always turning over new rocks, and there’s always a certain level of tension in your life. The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing.
If you’re more interested in looking like a hipster, a jazz musician, or a young hunk, I’d recommend the pork pie. It has a narrow brim and a flat top.
I didn’t get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I’m a singer-songwriter. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want.
I would not describe myself as an avid jazz fan and I am not a jazz musician myself. However, that is not to say that jazz does not play a vital and important role in my life.
The so-called alleged ‘art’ of the video – well, the video has killed the radio star, but the video star killed the live musician, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Being a musician – and I like to think of myself as a musician with a capital M – you need to be an omnivore, and I think the best musicians will listen to anything and love everything, and I do.
If you’re an actress or a musician, everyone thinks you’re hot.
I knew being a musician was my calling when I was 12 or 13. I started singing when I was six but didn’t actually see myself being a singer when I was 12 or 13.
You can’t just be a musician; you have to be an entertainer and perform and act just to hit the bar.
At Spotify, we really want you to democratically win as a musician. We want you to win because your music is the best music.
I’ve been a musician my whole life. I’m really enjoying making music again.
As a musician I’m kind of nomadic, Waldo-like. I show up in different places, and I’m witness to unbelievable things.
I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn’t nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked.
Edible names are what drives me as a musician. My next band will be called the Hot Dogs.
I like Flea, I like him as a musician.
And as I grew older, I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London, and they said, well, no, we won’t accept you, because we haven’t a clue – you know – of the future of a so-called ‘deaf’ musician. And I just couldn’t quite accept that.
I don’t really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I’d like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.
When I was a young musician, the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory.
Being a professional musician doesn’t mean you spend 12 hours a day playing music. It means you spend up to 12 hours a day taking care of business, dealing with litigation, with the various characters who’ve stolen your interests, or fending off hostile lawsuits from former members of the band.
Being an American musician means being adventurous.
I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young… he killed himself in the prime of his life.
If I’d been a better long-term planner, I’d still be in music, as a musician someplace. So I’ll take it one step at a time.
People be famous for everything other than music and that’s what they really trying to do. But they don’t know once you get famous for being this funny guy, nobody’s going to take you serious as a musician.
I made one rule for myself, and I really try to live it: Play music you love, with people you love, for people you love. If I can’t be that kind of musician, I’ll drive a cab.
My life won’t be a series of either/ors – musician or actor, rock or country, straitlaced or rebellious, this or that, yes or no. The real choices in life aren’t that simple.
I’m not really a musician. I’m a performer, and I love rock n’ roll. I’ve embraced rock n’ roll because it encompasses all the things I’m interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism – all of these things can be found in rock n’ roll.
Those who have expressed doubts and misgivings about their ability to live this kind of life shouldn’t try, because being a musician is not something you chose to be, it is something you are.
I’ll tell you what, I had complete control on ‘Unleashed.’ I directed, produced, chose the musician, picked the costumes, and everything. I never had anyone saying, ‘I don’t like this and I don’t like that.’ The studio, Universal, were easy. It was this weird movie no one cared about.
I am very self-critical, but that’s a good thing because it keeps me growing as a human being and as a musician.
Being a musician, people ask you a lot about what musicians inspire you, and there’s plenty of musicians that I love and respect, but I think that I’m the most inspired by cinema.
I don’t want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don’t get satisfaction out of it. I’d rather be doing something else. I’m a musician.
I went to public school, and it shaped me as a musician.
I have a very difficult time describing my music. Because I run into people in the hardware store and they go, ‘Oh, you’re a musician. So what kind of music do you play?’ And I go, ‘Uh, I’ve been doin’ this for many years – I don’t know what to call it.’
Growing up in a band is weird – you get stuck hanging on to what it is you think you are. But what I took into Depeche was that punk ethic, that you don’t have to be accomplished to be a musician. If you’ve got ideas, you can do this.
I consider myself more of a producer and a musician than a DJ.
I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It’s not like I’m cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.
Everything around a writer, or musician in the record business, probably everything in all the United States or in all of western civilization, is about competition.
As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that’s what I do, too.
I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I’m not talking about acting or anything like that, I’m talking about people I admire, whether it’s a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician, whatever.
You can always boil down the life of a musician to touring, playing, and writing.
Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.
I’m having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.
Bob Dylan is quite a songwriter, and a great singer and musician. I won’t bother with comparing myself to him, but I will say that I heard his records at a very young age and I still listen to all his records.
First of all, I think that is true, if you are a musician, particularly on the come, that you do have to end up in one of these musical centers, some way, to be viable, saleable and so on.
I’ve always felt a great affinity with music. I’ve felt myself to be more of a musician than anything else, though I’m not proficient in any one instrument. But I think I have a musical sense of things… and writing seems to me to be a musical experience – rhythmically and in many other ways.
I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician.
I want to be taken seriously as a musician.
Some people are born with a brain that has this weird, magical mathematical thing that makes them an amazing jazz musician.
My parents had chosen the medical profession for me. I even studied a few semesters at St Xavier’s College, but at the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a musician like my father.
I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.
It’s funny: I’m a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it’s been a solitary thing.
People are surprised when they realise that I have sung ‘Tinku Jiya’ as they felt it was not my genre. As a musician, till the time I don’t try something, I don’t refuse it. I like challenging jobs.
I think, as a musician, or even as a citizen of the world, I just want to be a part of something or feel connected to something bigger than myself.
A musician’s attempt to summarize his or her work leads to all this prescriptive chatter, or what I call the ‘Modifier’s Madness.’ A lot of adjectives working overtime.
