David Means Quotes

I don't like knowing what the next song is because that's what I'd think about during the number we're playing.

Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest.

I love performing. I love getting out there. It's kind of like why I make music.

I have no experience performing that music live in front of an audience. So that remains to be seen. I'm very excited to see what that's going to be like.

The first tour an artist does is a strange one... because you can never tell how the audience is going to react.

You always hope an audience will respond to something you've done, but there's no way of knowing whether or not they will.

Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody.

Every single night I'm nervous. You never know how the audience is going to react.

I feel my live shows are my music; everything blossoms from the live shows.

Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'

And being away and not performing for a long time and really connecting with my audience for a long time, I have a great responsibility to myself and to them to do it exactly the way the process was when I was young.

I like the feeling of not knowing where to look when you are only performing for one person or watching someone practice. It creates this kind of a strange in-between, which can be mirrored in the feeling of making a painting.

There is always a mix of apprehension and excitement before you try songs out on a new audience.

I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, but every time I show up on set it still feels like the first time.

Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly - and that is exactly the way I want it to stay.

But I love singing live. Nothing beats the feeling of going out on stage and going, 'I can really sing.'

The studio work is the nasty, tedious, hard and nerve-wracking part, interrupted by moments of exhilaration. Playing live is the chance to actually have some fun and get on a stage.

I'm in the studio for hours in that tiny little box, and really, the performing part is what I'm most excited about.

I can be completely spontaneous, which is absolutely wonderful. I don't like it at the same time; no one wants to be nervous all the time, but that nervousness mixes with the excitement I feel on the stage, and it makes for a wonderful performance.

Performing is a profound experience, at least for me.

It's one of the things that looks good written down, but the reality is that you think about the pieces you're doing and try to bear in mind everyone in the audience.

When I played God Bless The Queen, I was wondering if they was gonna dig us, then quite naturally I'd go on and try to get it together.

Performing is a profound experience, at least for me. It's not as if I sit down and play 'Fire and Rain' by myself, just to hear it again. But to offer it up... the energy that it somehow summons live takes me right back, and I do get a reconnection to the emotions.

Suspense is worse than disappointment.

At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, after as much success as you can get, is really interesting.