Tommy Shaw Quotes

I started singing about three years ago, I entered a local singing competition called Stratford Idol. The other people in the competition had been taking singing lessons and had vocal coaches. I wasn't taking it too seriously at the time, I would just sing around the house. I was only 12 and I got second place.

I can't even remember the first time I started singing.

My first ever stage performance was in Edinburgh in 1960.

I did 'Showtime at the Apollo' when I was 10, and it was the first time that I'd ever performed on TV, and it felt great.

My father is a university professor so when the schools needed a little kid for their productions I was often the kid they used. The first time I was ever on stage was about 2nd grade.

I performed in public for the first time at three years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was on a big stage. There were probably three or four hundred people in the audience. We were doing this dance, this Kermit the Frog routine, all of us in our little green leotards.

The accordion was the first instrument I played, when I was 7 years old.

The first song I wrote was called 'Here I Go Falling In Love' I wrote it in the sixth grade.

My first live performance was the lead in 'Peter Pan.'

When you're on stage playing, when I plug in a guitar and chord, I'm 16 years old again. I feel the same excitement. It's very overwhelming. It engulfs you.

I wrote my own pop songs and sang one of them when I went into a stupid beauty competition when I was 16. That was my public debut, and it made my mother even more determined that I should go into opera!

I have a favorite blue Telecaster. It's an old '60-something, which I play at every show. That's probably my favorite all-around stage guitar.

I played a bee! It was a Polish fairy tale we performed at school when I was seven or eight. I had wings fixed to me.

When I was ten, I did my first show. It was 'Annie.'

One day, when I was about eight years old, some kids pushed me on stage at school during a talent show because they knew I could sing.

When I was 10, my school did Romeo and Juliet. I was Juliet, and that was, like, the biggest deal ever. I was completely obsessed with the role.

By the time I was 4, I knew how to hit my mark.

The first thing I remember is Alexander Calder - our school took us on a field trip to go see the Calder mobiles, and that always stuck in my memory.

My mom took my sister and me to see Elvis [Presley] in concert when was, maybe 5 or 6, and I liked everything about it.

My first time on stage was the class "graduation" at the Comedy Store. It was awesome. Everything got huge laughs and I just thought I knew how to do comedy.

From elementary school on up through junior high school, I loved to perform. But I put it all away during high school and college. I thought, "That's not actually something you do with your life." But then I was compelled to try it after college. I just got overcome.

England manufactures most of the world's airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria.

My mom dressed me in silk to go to elementary school.

I did a lot of theater in school. I thought maybe I wanted to go to law school or be a judge or a politician. And then I just kind of got smitten by the process of rehearsal and working with other actors and those kinds of challenges. And then comedy.

As far as music school goes, I walked through Berkelee one time.