John Prine Quotes

The most important thing is that you honor that musical integrity, whether you make music that sounds like ABBA or you make music that sounds like Void.

I make the kind of music I like.

I just scribbled away and eventually a C-major chord was there. I didn't ever decide I was going to be a composer. It was like being tall. It's what I was. It's what I did.

As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.

I'm not that knowledgeable with the guitar - I just find ways that are pretty creative, but it's all within the framework and the limitations of what I can do.

When I play the trumpet, I'm in a different character.

As far as we're concerned, we're always Sonic Youth, and we're always making a Sonic Youth record. We just see it so much more as a continuum than a periodic thing. We're just in the studio making the next record, and we don't relate it to anything other than what's going on at the moment.

I'm not a singer, a walking instrument like Aretha Franklin. When you get an Iggy Pop record, you don't get "Iggy Sings." I am also a style of music, an approach.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don't learn something every day, you know what I think? It's a day lost. Now, I don't practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I'm doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

I'm not trying to be flippant here, but I just play the guitar, don't I? That is my characteristic, and it's my identity as you hear it.

I can show my characteristics and musical colors both as a member of Bigbang and as a solo artist.

I can't see us getting into, like, long solos.

I actually have a kind of fantasy about doing a covers album in general. My music taste is so eclectic, that I think it would be cool to put it through the funnel of my arrangements.

I couldn't find a way to write music with numbers and rules and schedules. So I tried to forget the academic idea of music and started to see if it was possible to do creative work, taking in all the influences I wanted to keep.

I still dabble in different types of music, but I'm sticking to my Country roots.

I think all the music I do, which ties together, as far as I'm concerned, is fun and entertaining.

Music is the embodiment of my soul. When I play, I'm not performing a song: I'm becoming it.

We were never hip, which is fine with me. We aren't that interested in that whole situation. But all the times how we tried and failed to get across in our music, we actually succeeded on 'Superstar Car Wash.'

All my music sounds the same to me.

Strapping Young Lad is a representation of me, just as much as 'Ki,' 'Ghost,' 'Ziltoid' or 'Infinity.' There's no difference; it was just a different period of time.

Musically, I try not to box things in. I try to just play around this spectrum of influences: soul, jazz, and hip-hop.

What I do is, I look at rock guitar players, and I say to myself, 'What is this guy doing? What does he have that can inspire me?' I try to see what other people are doing and take what they have and turn it and twist it into my own thing.