David Byrne Quotes

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

It was really terrific but Foreigner was nothing like Yes and that style did not suit our music.

My first album is like a terrible John Hammond album, with drums.

We knew that we wanted to play heavy music but I hadn't gotten into melody and things like that.

Even though I'm a jazz-trained drummer, I cut my teeth playing rock.

I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.

I have a very pop voice, but there's so much of me I associate mostly with urban music, so I try to blend the two.

I was just going more for what I've always been influenced by, European music.

You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials - guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.

Rihanna is so into rock, and she gives me an empty canvas to work with. I get to do wild solos and crunch up the rhythms. It's rock, it's R&B, it's hip-hop, it's funky - all totally up my alley.

For me, it's always been about a mix of hip-hop, acoustic singer/songwriters, and piano rock. I pull all those together. Each song may lean more heavily on one than the other, but they all have all three pieces.

I never started out as an R&B singer. I grew up on all types of music - jazz, rock, pop, country, folk - and I wanted to bring that to my stage.

The one thing about The Weeknd is that he's gone between the world of trap music and pop music and blended them together, so it makes it interesting in that way. That's what I like about him.

I want to do more urban R&B with a little bit of pop, but not much. I want to have that soulful kind of side of me come out.

I have a sound. It's called 'funk mixed with stank.' That's what I do.

I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion.

I don't really have a favorite genre. I could listen to a rock song, a metal song, jazz, pop music, whatever. For me, whatever style it is, it always depends on the chord progression, the lyrics, and the melody used.

If you take a song like 'We Will, We Will Rock You,' 'You got blood on your face... ' - he's rhyming on that! And if you take the lyrics out of that song, you get a hip-hop beat. It's a rock song, though. So it's not out of my element for me to get with Black Lips.

The soundtrack for 'Mr. Fraud' is classical with a decent level of fusion.

You listen to a Metallica song, and you listen to the drums, and they're not necessarily swinging, but the arrangements are different. Why is that? Because it's more in tune with jazz arrangements. It's very different. It's not a traditional rock and roll production, in terms of the drums.

There was a time when I had spiky hair and I was doing Indian-influenced R&B fusion songs.

Go-go is so drum and Congo based. It's almost like music from Africa. The drums like on 'Planet Paradise' are deeply African-rooted. It's really bouncy and the same speed as go-go music. That's an example of the influence go-go had on me.

My sound is a mix between pop, hip-hop, and R&B. It's a good collaborative effort of all three.

I don't see myself working with Lil Pump. He goes crazy though. We have two different sounds, but he goes hard.

As a rock band, you're slightly one foot in the past, playing instruments like guitar, bass and drums.