Charlie Fink Quotes

There are right and wrong reasons for doing solo projects, and this album was done for the right reasons. At the time there was no Judas Priest and I certainly wasn't going to hang my hat up on my musical career.

I've been told if you're an actress you can't sing, if you're a dancer you can't act, you can't do theatre and be respected if you've done a TV soap, you can't have a No. 1 record. All these different things they've told me I can't do, but I wanted to do them, so I've done them.

Strangely enough, through all those school years I decided at 13 or 14 I was going to be a musician and so school was just something to get out of the way, a waste of time and not to bother with it.

You only get one album. You only get one single. You get one shot in music. But I have a million different dreams. Why can't I go out and try to achieve them all? Who are you to say I can't?

As a musician, you just want to be able to do what you love.

Growing up in England, people told you why you couldn't do things. Suddenly, I had a publisher banging on my door, and was given the creative green light to simply make.

I just like to do work that inspires me, and I don't pay any attention to whether it's a high- or low-budget movie.

I'm American. I'm eclectic. I'm going to follow my musical passions. And if people don't like it, and it hurts my legacy, I'm not going to worry about that.

I am proud being an artist who takes risks, who would walk off a cliff artistically. I won't settle for commercial reasons.

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

When you're a kid with artistic yearnings brought up in the Bronx, you don't get fed up too easily.

It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it.

I haven't accepted anyone telling me what is or isn't possible and have just kept moving along toward my goals.

I still love playing music. It was all I ever wanted to do, and I got the chance to do it.

You just have to do your art. Nothing can stop you.

I felt my music wasn't aiming at anybody. Everything I was doing was because it was a good song.

There are times when what you do will be mysterious to everyone... times when you have to change directions before people are ready. Just because someone does something that critics don't like or understand doesn't mean you're failing as a musician. It probably means you're growing.

I chose busking because I didn't want to be working for someone else. I wanted to work as I am. I feel like you ultimately do have a choice if you have your vision. So, I had a vision forever that I was going to play music. And there was no stopping that.

Why was I so single-minded about acting? Acting wasn't in the family; no one went to the theatre in my street. It wasn't encouraged in my school.

I'm just going to keep trying to write music for me because that's what got me here.

Overall, I just love performing so much that when I write, I want to write for me. I kind of learned that on 'Mr. Show,' that even in an environment where you can write whatever you want - which is what that environment was - I realized, 'Man, I still want to be the guy out in front.'

I don't make art to make money, I make art so I can make art.

I always felt like - I mean, I was told, really - I couldn't go too far with the productions because it didn't appeal to black radio. It wasn't until I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do or I was going to quit that I empowered myself. I took my power back.

The market kills more artistic passion than anything else.

I continue to write. It's just one of those things that I do. I'll have periods when I write and periods when I don't. But you don't want it to become a discipline really. If it becomes a discipline, it becomes a chore and that's no good.