Dimebag Darrell Quotes

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.

I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.

Singing didn't really come naturally to me, I don't think. I had to really work at it. I just kept singing. I never was really worried about it, though, because I was writing songs, and that was the most important thing to me.

One of the great things that I loved about doing solo - which I ended up doing because I was too shy to ever try out for bands back in the day - I could sit there with a list of songs and 'paint away' for the show.

I know I'm not Freddie Mercury or Ann Wilson, and that's okay. You don't have to be a great singer to sing rock and roll. That's not what it's about.

I've never really been a confident person, except from a musical standpoint. I had to push myself early on, but it got easier with each gig.

Piano playing is a dying art. I love the fact that I can be one guy with one instrument evoking an emotional and musical experience.

I do love to sing. Had I a longer set of thigh bones and a sweeter voice, I should have loved to be a performer.

A good interpreter can take a piece of bad music and make it sound pretty decent, while a bad interpreter can take good music and make it sound cheap. I can tell that some people have a bad taste, and unlike on the piano, they smear around a lot, that is bad taste.

With music, you're really showing someone a piece of your soul. You're saying, 'This is mine. I wrote this, I made this, I'm performing this. This is how I'm presenting it to you.' There's something really scary about that, but there's also something next-worldly about it, too.

I'd love to claim the title of 'songwriter' or 'intellectual,' but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.

The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs.

The first time I sang in front of an audience, I was about 14 - it was at my guitar school's showcase, and there were about 30 people there. I was so nervous, but I did it.

A lot of people said to me, 'Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!'

I've never understood people who play up the artifice of music.

If I'm on form and I'm not being bothered too much by mental problems or whatever, I can whip out something good. That's why I've done quite a few overdubs for Tina Turner and things like that, because even before she made this comeback I said yes to her, just because I love Tina Turner.

People think you have to go through a lot of changes to become a soul singer, You just have to go through life.

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

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.

It's something that I've always done. I started singing when I was four years old; that was the first time I took a voice lesson. I would say, maybe from five years on, I sang on stages constantly. That's what I call my natural habitat: It's a place where I feel most like myself and the most confident, the most excited.

We're not here to make the ignorant people happy. We're here to write our music for those people that are interested in good rock n' roll music.

Performing live is a part of who I am.

When you sit down and see someone play at a piano, you don't think, 'Wow - what a fantastic machine.'

I'm not actually even a very good singer. I'm not.

I know I'm not the kind of music that's going to have tons of screaming fans, and I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. I just want to do as good a job as I can.