Brad Paisley Quotes

After playing for 40 years, I've been able to evolve the way I see the fretboard and how I hear the guitar in my head.

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

I learned how to play guitar by playing along to Jane's Addiction records and Smashing Pumpkins records, things you can totally hear if you listen to my guitar.

I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.

I've just always been around great songwriters. To me, they were the standard.

I wanted to go to Berklee College of Music because that's where Steve Vai went - I was total tunnel vision.

I used to be totally into Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and other shredders, and I tried to emulate what they did and really grow as a guitarist.

I find it quite easy to play chords, and, you know, that was all I ever did. I never wanted to be a lead guitarist.

All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.

The only one I can play like is Johnny Ramone. I would love to be able to play like other great guitarists, but my mind doesn't work like that.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

From the first instant I met her, I wanted to be Nora Ephron. I just really wanted to please her.

I learned everything by ear and played all the different instruments. So then I was able to find a guitar. That was, like, in the seventh grade. And then I didn't know how to put my fingers on all the different strings, so I had to figure out how to do it upside down and backwards, and I still play that way today.

I didn't take lessons, and I don't know my scales.

When I got my first guitar, I played along with everything I heard that had guitar in it, like the Ramones, Nirvana and Sublime, as well as whatever hip-hop and R&B stuff was on the radio.

I would like to be someone like Steve Martin. That's the path I'd like to follow.

When I graduated high school, I bought a guitar and, at first, didn't really think I'd get into the songwriting thing as much as I did. But after learning a few songs of other people's to play on the guitar, I got bored with that and just started writing songs on my own, and that's kinda how it came about.

And, you know, my dad would show me some things sometimes, but the best things that I got to do were to actually see really good players play up close. That gives you an idea of fingering and technique and what not.

I'm starting to see players copy what I do. I'm flattered.

Learning how to improvise really awakened my interest in music.

I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players. Not to say that it is not important to listen to guitar players, but there's so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

There are no rules to writing a song.

When I heard BB King's 'Sweet Sixteen,' I knew I wanted to play bass because that was the thing that made that record: the bass player.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of the Instrument.

I love to play guitar. I've been writing my own songs on the axe since I was nine years old. I suck at leads.