Harvey Pekar Quotes

I got into music when I was a little boy. My dad was always into jazz. I got my education from him. The first time I listened to jazz, he gave me a Thelonious Monk record. It was so different from anything I had ever heard. It took me a while to understand it, and I liked that. I liked the fact that it wasn't immediately palatable.

It wasn't until I was about 17 or 18 years old that I got into music.

Learning how to improvise really awakened my interest in music.

Not really, drums found me, I just liked music, all kinds of music.

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 go through phases where I'm not into jazz as much, and then I'll get heavy, heavy, heavy into it.

The way I like to think about it is, even though I started music early - I started in classical music - it wasn't until I discovered jazz that I really fell in love with music and realized this was what I wanted to do for a living.

Often a single experience will open the young soul to music for a whole lifetime

Music was not a big deal to me when I was in middle school. And then I slowly became a big jazz fan. Even more than concerts, a lot of my high school time was spent going to jazz clubs in the city.

If you don't already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.

When I came across something I liked, I wanted to find out as much as I could about it. This was as true of hearing Hoagy Carmichael for the first time as it was later when I first heard Boulez.

I think there is great interest amongst the younger people in this music. I think that there is a lot of them that are looking for interesting situations and music that is stimulating.

At the end of the day I want to be the guy who experienced music in all type of ways, with hip-hop being the roots of it.

I still picture myself as a student of the music. I'm always trying to learn new things. Music is just what makes me tick.

I just essentially stayed at home for three years and just learned to play as many instruments as I could and listened to as many singers as I could. Like, when I got to about 19/20, I started listening to singers. I normally just listened to bands. Now I listen to a lot of old singers, not a lot of new stuff.

I've always loved music, but I never really played anything. After 'Walk the Line' and learning to play guitar, and having that sense of performing, I think that certainly opened the door for me, for music.

I love jazz and pop rock and country. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Anne Murray - if I hear something really great... I want to be a part of it.

Where I've been hasn't influenced my music. It's more what I listen to. You can find music everywhere, so moving hasn't really influenced my music, more me as a person.

It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are.

Music is like the genius of humankind, universal... People who have never really taken the time to get into music, their lives are a lot smaller. Kids deserve the richness and dimension of it in their lives.

When I was 12, I happened to see a schoolmate playing percussion, and it looked interesting. I asked for lessons, and it felt right.

My dad is a big jazz fan, and that was the reason I first got into jazz.

It's never too late to do anything new when it comes to music.

I just had to find something else to fulfill me. Always being a singer and writing, it was a blessing. My brother started making music that was the kind of music I always saw myself singing.

At the end of the day, I think that I'm making music for me as that 12-year-old kid in front of my boombox every day. I try to think about, if I'm that little kid, what would he like?