Freya Ridings Quotes

You know, if Kelly Clarkson wants to do country albums because that's what inspires her, then let her do it. Look at Kanye West or Ludacris... they aren't rappin' and cussin' like they were on their first few albums, so what does that make them? It's all in the eye of the beholder and the listener. We all use our outlet to grow ourself.

My music is an extension of who I am and what I went through and what I know musically.

Music is always a part of my characters' make-up.

Strapping Young Lad is a representation of me, just as much as 'Ki,' 'Ghost,' 'Ziltoid' or 'Infinity.' There's no difference; it was just a different period of time.

I want my music to evolve to become more me.

If I'm not crying while writing a song, I'm not doing it right.

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.

My work is has always been very, very personal.

Songs come from all over the place. You can't predict what you're going to like. You might like something that doesn't fit right now. What was working for you at one point, something you've loved for years and years, when you get together with everybody, you think, this doesn't match up with what's going on with you personally.

I kind of miss writing songs the way that I used to write songs, in the sense that I would just sit down, and all these words that told a story would come out. There's one Bon Iver song called 'Blood Bank' that is more representative of an older lineage of songs, which I like and I sort of miss. But it just doesn't happen anymore for me.

Music is really driving my whole life.

As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.

When I was a kid, I remember trying to emulate Stevie Wonder's sound, and Donny Hathaway's sound. It's just part of who I am - I'm just a soulful kind of dude.

In high school, I would secretly play Joni Mitchell songs all the time. That's when I started singing and playing at the same time, and I got really into doing that.

I feel I've had three careers in one, really. There was the 'Benny Santini' stuff; that came with a general sense of, 'Who the hell is he?' And then there was 'The Road To Hell' stuff, and now there's the blues stuff.

It's not that some songs are for radio and some songs aren't, I'm just making whatever I feel.

I had no interest in music. But now, music means everything to me. I have no words to explain how beautiful music is. It is where you can create everything, like beautiful songs to sad songs to almost anything.

I don't think about whether it's gonna be a dance record or a ballad or anything when I'm making music. I sit in the studio and I think, 'How am I feeling today?' and I write how I feel. It's really, really simple.

I really like the art of music, the way that you can express yourself through music.

I'm a songwriter; it's in my nature to express things openly.

I don't know, I've always written songs that are mainly about attitude, not me personally.

We were big Clash fans, you know, big Who fans and I think we would listen to this music and talk about music and do nothing but music night and day, and when it came time to actually making our own music, you feel compelled to sort of tuck all those influences away, not show them.

I tried for a long time to make DJ-able dance tracks that were more specific to the stuff that I was playing. Ultimately, I found I wasn't really capable of doing that. The only type of music I was able to make that really made me feel something would just come straight from my heart or straight from whatever emotions I was feeling at that time.

I know definitive points in my life and in relationships because of my songs. I write my music so that I'll never be bored of it.

You can draw a line between what I'm interested in and what I'm not interested in. On one side you can name Dylan and Lennon, who observe the world and have feelings, and write songs directly from those feelings. On the vapid side you have pop groups who need material and write songs to fill the hole, rather than getting somebody else.