David Draiman Quotes

When I heard 'Back to Black' from Amy Winehouse, I was, like, 'Wow.' To hear such a soulful voice that feels like it's from a different era, I mean, it felt so fresh and unique, and that was something that opened my eyes and made me believe that it's not always about churning out the same thing in this industry.

The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Metallica - they're so demonic, they're crazy, I don't know how they do it.

As iconic a band as Metallica has become, I think sometimes we forget just how raw they were in the beginning of their career, and to a 15-year-old kid like me, it was just shattering. I mean, it was beyond.

I think the women - Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu - are doing new conceptual things and using their voices to create new American music.

I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music.

To some people heavy metal is Motorhead and to others it's Judas Priest.

Without Metallica, I wouldn't play the way that I do.

Metallica is a big, huge influence and inspiration. That's who Babymetal aspires to become some day.

I don't want music to be a museum.

There's everybody in the world who is always trying, time and time again, to proclaim the death of rock, or hard rock and heavy metal. Not if I have anything to do with it, not if we have anything to do with it.

We listen to a lot of hip hop. They're the ones that are trailblazing. It used to be rock, but it's really turned to hip hop, and they're doing really unique and cool things, and we wanted to do that, too.

Without Metallica, we wouldn't have a lot of the bands that we have now.

I would say there is a zone of R&B that hadn't been quite innovative.

Sure, some tracks are not as good as others, but we've written some really strong, classic stuff, like 'The Number of the Beast,' 'Hallowed Be Thy Name,' and 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner.'

I think it's not only Babymetal's sound but also the fact that we dance to metal that represents a new way of expressing this genre of music.

We need a few more Kanyes, people that's really passionate about hip-hop and who keep it alive.

On their debut, Korn brought a new definition of metal that was a game changer.

I saw Metallica, I'm not a major Metallica fan, but I like music enough to get invited and went.

To me, a lot people really get wrapped up in the technical side of metal and what's metal and what's not and more double-kick and more blast beats and more technicality, but for me, I'm a song person. So I think you can write good songs in any type of style of rock and any type of style of metal, and that's kind of what I'm a fan of.

When we started, I was just having fun with it I didn't even know about doing it for a living. It was a new style of music, a combo of punk and metal.

Starting in junior high school, through high school, I was very into metal or black metal and death metal specifically.

We are a metal band, period. To me, the 'nu' part infers some sort of a rap influence.

During our formative years, it was all about, 'What did Metallica do?' and 'How do we do that?' and then you try and find an identity of your own, but they're still... They were the pioneers and the trailblazers.

I never thought we were a country band in the first place. I think we've gotten ourselves into a place where we don't underestimate our listeners and what potential there is for the music they've heard all their lives.