Luis Alberto Urrea Quotes

Never would I have thought that I would meet Mick Jagger, much less be working on the same project.

I feel it's my responsibility to turn people on to great music.

I've been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.

'The White Album' is a record I can go back to time and time again, and always find something different that I never noticed or appreciated before.

I had a great conversation with Tom Waits, of all people.

I find that it isn't wise to attempt to judge people on their public persona, and even on the music they make. Because I've met so many people whose music I cannot stand, and they're very nice. At the same time, I've met people whose music I've loved, and they're not the person you've invested all this emotion in.

Going to a concert can sometimes be very difficult. It can be a long journey. There's the ticket prices. But when the music goes to the community - not the community coming to the concert - they say, 'Wow! I didn't know that this music was so amazing!'

I grew up loving classic rock music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones - and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What is this?' I was eight and it changed my life.

I was first influenced by a friend in fifth grade when he brought a Walkman to school and was listening to 'Paradise City' by Guns 'N Roses, which he had concealed within his hoodie. He put the headphones over my ears and I was completely blown away by what I heard. I'll never forget that.

It's better for the listener to interpret their own meanings to the music.

Of course, there are many, many musicians whose music gives me pleasure, but until I make contact with them, musically or personally, I never assume that anything wonderful will happen.

I've been obsessed with seeing life through music. My records, my relationship with records, my relationship with rock stars, everything that surrounds it, has been really one of the only ways that I ever started to understand the world.

The girl that introduced The Smiths' song 'Asleep' to me was an important musical influence that I met in college. From there it's been an ongoing journey of different bands at different times, introducing bands and songs to me.

As I get older, I don't aggressively pursue songs. All the great ones just appear.

The stuff that I dig, it's usually got a soulful component to it. A singer that I really like. I might not understand the language that they're singing in, but I'm really communing with this person.

I listen to all types of music, but big rock records are the ones that, in the walk-up, make me wonder, 'What's this next set going to sound like?'

You can learn and enrich yourself through the process of knowing a different musical culture.

I was one of the first American rock n' rollers in the '50s to go to many foreign countries. It's a wonderful thing to go out and spread joy and love rather than hate.

British rock & roll became the gospel for American kids like me.

For me, one song is not enough to be in a person's world. I need to be in their world for 40 minutes; I want to fully experience it and immerse myself.

I rode on a plane a couple years ago with Snow Patrol and didn't know who the hell they were. They said they were big fans of mine and were playing Madison Square Garden. And they let me listen to one of their records on their iPod. I started to weep.

I listen to different artists. I open my mind to different artists.

I almost felt like I knew London before the first time I went there.

Once I heard how deep music could touch people and what it can make you feel and all of these emotions it could bring out, I was really fascinated with it all.

I went to see 'Frozen' - appropriately, with my sister - and loved it, but never in a million years could I have imagined that I'd ever play Anna. I mean, what are the chances?