Jonathan Groff Quotes

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do, and then just go for it.

But I did that, and I created another blues scene, another something I can sing about.

I think once I started writing my own music and having my own bands, that's when I got more of a focus on what I wanted to do, personally.

With our first record, we wrote concept songs but not a concept record.

'Love Letter' is a concept album, and whenever I do a concept album - and I love doing concept albums more than any other kind of album - it allows me to get dressed, in a way, musically.

I want my music to evolve to become more me.

I feel like the first record was really finding my feet, figuring out what music I wanted to make... Now that I've done that, I feel like I've got a much clearer idea of what I want to sound like and what I want to discover. It's exciting.

For the longest time, I didn't even want to admit I was serious about music. Before the Shins, I would tell myself, 'Oh, I'm going to figure something out someday.' I had this romantic vision of being this old dude maybe making guitars or something.

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

Sometimes I feel like I'm taking on a role when I'm writing a song, and it doesn't always have to be true. I'm not sitting in my room crying with my guitar, writing a slow solo about a depressing breakup; that's not me.

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

After touring with David Bowie last year, I was inspired to look at what I wanted to do as an artist, and I realized I wanted to go back to the music I fell in love with when I was eight years old.

In a way, I created Utopia as a platform for me to become more of a guitar player and less of the kind of balladeer that people were taking me for.

I'm interested in music as an extension of character.

As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.

I think of a band like Animal Collective where they really follow their own sound and I think that's a really important thing to do. You can find an audience if you can find your voice.

In certain ways I still feel like I'm finding my way. I feel pretty comfortable playing acoustic guitar and singing, but then I feel pretty good sitting on a reggae groove as well.

When I was younger I didn't really know what genre of music I'd want to do because I'd always done so many different types, so many impressions.

So it's not so much that I set out to do something different, it's just that the songs themselves require their own individual voice and attention.

I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.

I try and make all my songs sound different from each other while doing it in a way that's still me. It's a tricky thing to do.

Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn't, I don't really see a point to it.

I don't view myself as a musician anymore - I view myself as a human being that functions as a musician when I'm functioning as a musician, but that's not 24 hours a day. That's really opened me up to even more perspectives because now I look at music, not from the standpoint of being a musician, but from the standpoint of being a human being.

When you make a solo record, it's you. It's your name. It has to be the right songs for how you feel.