Ryan Tedder Quotes

It was about working with other musicians, but more than that it's about exploring musical areas that you could never do with the band you're in, in my case Judas Priest. You could tackle musical areas and lyrical areas that wouldn't be appropriate for Priest.

I love mixing up my genres.

Creating any type of art is all about mood. I've been making extreme music in one fashion or another for decades. And truthfully, Down has a big enough fan base to where I could remain content to do only that, but music is a vast territory and I am an explorer. And I'm a lover of all things considered extreme in music.

I've always had influences from all over the place, like Mr. Bungle and Primus. As a band, we try not to focus too much on where it's coming from, because we're always listening to music.

I like pop music, and I like really weird, strange stuff. It just didn't feel like there was anyone doing both.

If I was just in one band, I would have a problem with the amount of time between records because I don't want to wave one flag. I just want to be part of something cool.

To break R&B into subcategories does a disservice to the music. I like to live in a zone where I can do whatever I want, where I don't have to worry about genre.

Being able to take musical ideas through every iteration is attractive to me. Granted, not everyone's going to want to listen to that, but it should exist.

I'm so happy people are seeing the eclectic side of me. I'm really honored to be able to push my voice into different sounds. Otherwise it all gets a bit samey same.

My music is a direct reflection of the eclectic person I am. I don't like to be stuck in an R&B box.

I'm quite an eclectic musician.

To be honest, and this comes out of left field, but I would love to do something with Jay-Z or Eminem. I have no limitations when it comes to the stuff I want to do musically. So to be able to do something like that I think would be really, really cool.

We didn't go for music that sounded like blues, or jazz, or rock, or Led Zeppelin, or Rolling Stones. We didn't want to be like any of the other bands.

Thenewno2 is sort of my little prototype band, really.

It's a very subjective, personal, instinctive approach as musicians of saying, 'We don't want to replace what's around; we just want to widen the possibilities.'

My favorite band of all time is The Clash. The thing I love about The Clash is they started out as guys who could barely play three chords. They dabbled in reggae, punk, rap, jazz. They came to a sound that could only be defined as The Clash. It was impossible to say what it was. I admire them for that.

I think anything I do will have an island feel, but I don't want it to be just that; I don't want to be put in a box.

I wouldn't go so far as to make 'You Don't Own Me' a tango or 'It's My Party' a hip-hop thing. Believe me, those things have been suggested to me. But I thought if I could stay true to the song, the arrangements would work. I'm really enjoying singing them.

It's sort of what jazz would be if it stopped being snobby and what rock would be if it stopped being stupid.

Musicians tend to get bored playing the same thing over and over, so I think it's natural to experiment.

I like to sing covers of songs that are at the extreme ends from what I usually listen to.

So it's more the musician in me that makes me stretch out and try different things more than anything. But, like a lot of guitar players, I have one certain niche that's my thing that I'm better at than the others.

I love that I can play around with all types of music.

What I appreciate about Sleater-Kinney is that we did six records, and they all felt different. It was a band that was able to encapsulate different sensibilities because we were focusing on it as music and art and not as a statement.

I guess I always think the people that know me or fans that have followed me and know my solo work would know that I've always had really eclectic tastes - even in Motley, dude.