Jonas Akerlund Quotes

If I stop to think about fans, or best-selling, or not best-selling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's like staring at the mirror all day.

I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

I never got caught up in playing for history, seeing how many majors I could win, or rewriting the record books. Those are selfish objectives, and the guy who chokes usually does so because he dwells on what it all means to him. I was only worried about my family. And although I had my share of failures, it was never because I choked.

When people come to me and tell me I was terrific in this or that, I do not want to fall flat on my face the next time. But, tough, I have fallen flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off.

An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.

When you're winning, you're a hero. When you're losing, you're a bum... I'm as bad as the fans, believe me. If they only knew how I hate losing and what we go through to try to win.

When you're not playing, you always question yourself.

We're always in that head space about the audience and less about us at that moment.

I sort of pride myself in my dissatisfaction with my work. I've always been concerned with buying the hype, and having that make your performances suffer.

I feel like traditional artists feel like everything that they do has to be perfect and touched up, and it has to be about something that would be able to be played on the radio.

It's hard to continue to be great and have so much on your back, knowing that even a little mistake can mess you up for good.

People don't look at you singing. They go within themselves and listen. Music is about listening, not looking. That's why I wore these huge baggy dresses on stage with The Cranberries.

I don't really think about the crowd when I am in the middle. I actually forget about the crowd, forget the money; that's exactly what I always do.

You see a lot of guys who are told they will be the number one contender if they win the fight in front of them. They have fought a couple of really tough guys to get there, but when the chance is presented to them, something happens in some shape or form, and they aren't able to take it. They end up losing. That was the biggest fear for me.

I used to get the most anxiety before shows because I really was never prepared.

When you're winning, your confidence is through the roof, but when you're losing, that self-doubt is like, 'Am I doing the right thing?'

I've learnt that from stand-up - you should always worry that it's going to go badly, otherwise you're too laissez faire.

I felt like a failure for so long because I wasn't able to access myself in the way I knew I would have if I was going to make music that mattered. I knew I was going to have to learn how to be honest.

I have fear of the audience and I am responsible for the scenes involving me, be it as a comedian or hero.

I always just try to remind myself, like, at the end of the day, no matter how much pressure it is to be a TV show host, you still get to be a TV show host.

Since I came on the tour so young and I won my first match, I've had a lot of comments like 'You'll be a top player one day.' I got to the point where, as nice as it was to hear that, I almost stopped listening to it. I was almost putting added pressure on myself.

I love any kind of recognition because as an actor I'm very hard on myself sometimes.

My goal with everything that I do is to present things in a way that I would want to see if I was in the audience or buying the record.

Can I give them what they think they're going to get from me? That's always the big question.

You start losing a client the moment you get it.