Ruben Blades Quotes

Songs like Reach and S Club Party are pop classics. I'm really proud that I had a part in them.

I feel there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing.

I was someone who knew what they wanted to do for so long. I was always fascinated by music, always a student of pop.

We travel so much as touring musicians and artists that sometimes, when you hear a great song that you really think could be on your project, you go ahead and record it instead of try to write it.

I'm more of an artist and a songwriter than I am a DJ. That word seems a little bit - well, it doesn't really describe what I do.

I wrote songs with the guys from Air Supply for their record... So I was just writing songs.

I'm just a musician and a record producer.

I'm a true believer that unless you're Prince or Stevie Wonder - and even Prince is showing that he needs help - not everybody can produce themselves. I'm definitely not that person.

I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good.

I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that.

The very first time I ever heard anything of mine on the radio, I was in New Jersey, and I was in my teens. I did my first record, which was an old standard called 'My Mother's Eyes.' It was the old Georgie Jessel theme. I heard it on local radio out of Newark. And it was very exciting!

I want to write my own music, and I want to tour.

I'm a catalogue artist: I compete with Bob Dylan.

My ambition was to be a record producer, and I had started doing that in the late '60s with my work with the MC5 and my friend Livingston Taylor.

It's much easier to have a diversified career as an electronic musician than it is as a drummer. Nothing against drummers. If you're a drummer, you just wait around for people to ask you to play drums. But if you have your own studio and can make music, you have the ability to approach music a lot differently.

I have been fortunate enough to record several singles and a whole album with Chet Atkins.

I've been around two years shy of 50 years doing what I do. I am a musician.

The first song I did was over a Chief Keef beat - 'Understand Me.' I did that in, like, 2011 or 2012, I think.

Whenever I fill out the job description I put 'songwriter', never 'singer' or 'artist.' Singers come and go.

I want to take Justin Bieber for a month and just lock him up in a cage where we sit and make music. He's one of the most successful people in the world, but his music could be so much tighter.

They wanted to start recording rock 'n roll, and thought I had the right voice.

I'd like to be writing songs for other people - I just like writing songs.

I've always had a lot of creative impact on the music with Timbaland.

All of these people kept on being professional musicians and composers in the strictest sense.

I know right now she has no idea who I am, but I'd like to collaborate with Enya one day. Of course I'd love to work with Jay-Z, maybe even Phil Collins. I love his voice.