Johnny Marr Quotes

David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C'mon - Van Halen doing 'Dancing in the Streets'? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else's music.

I love singing. It's who I am. When I act, I take a small part of myself and just magnify it, but when I'm singing, that's who I am. I don't write music, so I choose songs that I would have written.

I have to choose songs that represent my personality.

I did this thing with Trisha Yearwood, a song called 'The Price.' I had been sitting on it for a while, because I figured, you know, this really needs a good singer.

I've sung other people's music all my life.

It's so important which musicians we choose for being in the orchestra.

In college, I was able to be the vocalist for the jazz band at Arkansas State.

I've always been a little bit in the background as a singer and even as an acoustic-guitar player, although I crank it up and rock with my Marshall stacks, too.

When I started out as a cover band, I was obsessed with Keith Urban and Jason Aldean and Eric Church; those are the songs I chose to sing as a cover band.

Initially, in starting to pick the songs for the live show, it was really a matter of picking songs that I loved over the years. As far as the album goes, it happened very naturally.

It's the singer not the song that makes the music move along.

It's hard being the guy that brings in a song, because you're very, you know, it can be something that you get too sensitive about.

Generally I just pick music that I like. That's the part I really enjoy: When I get permission for the songs I want and put them into the scenes. It's always hard when you're doing a low-budget film, so it's great when you can get all the music you want to get.

Sometimes performing someone else's song is more difficult than writing your own.

Like many musicians, it's my roots in music, playing cover songs. I've done probably a lot more covers than the average person who does what I do, but I'm very proud of it, and I do feel like I really bring a lot artistically to these covers.

I picked songs that I've been singing my whole life that stuck with me. I tried to pick stuff that was a variety. And I think the same way I always imagine that people are going to play the record at their house and I imagine them doing stuff with music on, like the way I am.

I am lucky to have the greatest band and when you add a symphony orchestra to the mix it brings all of my songs to a whole new level. I wouldn't say I really change what I do but, having those talented musicians behind me, along with my band, really makes the songs so much bigger and more fun to sing.

When I was a kid my Dad never let me sing Patsy Cline songs for one simple reason: they've already been done.

If I'm anything, I'm not a singer but I'm a song stylist.

If there's a certain song that I want to reach a certain person or certain type of person, that's when I play it for people.

I started playing the bass because nobody else would play the bass, and then I got bumped up into singing because no one else really wanted to sing. So I learned how to sing and I wrote the songs, so I tended to get the most attention.

Radio is paid by advertising. They decide what songs to play that'll keep people listening. And that's what promoters and the Classic Rock people do.

I sang my song called "In This Song." David Foster wrote the song for me. I thought that I should sing a ballad song.

There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.

Even if the song meant a lot to me, I would still probably perform it live.