Lana Del Rey Quotes

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.

I actually started playing in little cafes around New York, and I have a lot of good friends of mine who are musicians who are struggling in New York.

Brooklyn is where I primarily developed. I had an opportunity to make records and perform in clubs here and there, and I started networking with the right people in the right places.

I wasn't sure what would happen to me after 'The Voice.' I was just excited to make music.

L.A. is a big city that has a lot of music in it but is not necessarily known for it. A lot of musicians got lost in that. You can make a living; you can gig a lot within the city and never get out of it. That was something that me and my friends, our generation, were afraid of happening to us.

I spent two years playing open mic nights in Brighton, and I heard more and more people saying, 'You should give it a go in London.'

I never thought of having platinum albums and winning awards. I just wanted to write songs and sing when I started out in the music business.

From day one when you're singing, you're dreaming about making that first album and making your break into whatever music you want to break into.

It is one thing to record an album but it's a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.

I started playing guitar, like, when I was 17 or so, but where I'm from, you just don't hear about people moving to Nashville and making it. It was such a foreign thing to me. I never knew music was an option for me.

The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.

In a way, Jersey really supports rock, maybe more than New York City and Long Island. I know plenty of bands that tour and do much better at Starland or other clubs in New Jersey than others in the tri-state area.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.

I am just glad that I can take the music to the people who want to hear it. I love my audiences. I am deeply indebted to them for giving me the chance to sing my concerts, make records, and do what I love. Whatever people call it, it is great to have a voice!

I think in L.A., in terms of the music scene, it's a really strange place. It's really hard to get the feeling that something's happening, or the feeling that something can make it out of there.

I've no grand designs to conquer the music industry, but I'd love to be able to tell my mates that I'm playing in a pub in Camden one night.

There were no good bands in my town. You know, there's like this magic town where every kid started a band in high school, and half of them were good and have careers based on relationships built at that time? That wasn't what my life was like at all.

I moved to Dallas, and I started making music.

Being a guitarist was scary, honestly, as a girl in Nashville. It just felt like no one was gonna ask me to be in a band and play guitar, like I never was gonna get asked to do that.

I was not ready fresh out of high school to hit the streets of Nashville.

You can't be rolling into town with stars in your eyes. A lot of people get to Nashville and immediately start selling themselves: 'Let's go to lunch and talk about the business!' Then you realize everyone is talented here.

There are a lot of Israeli musicians in New York because you want to grow and go onstage, and eventually you have to get out of Israel to do that because there aren't enough places to play.

I didn't move to Nashville with any inkling or dreams of getting a record deal. I didn't have those stars in my eyes. I just wanted to take a break, relax, and figure out songwriting.

We all kind of dreamed about being musicians, but the narrative around being a musician is it'll never happen to you. It's not something that just happens - one in a million shot - all those things that just make you feel like it'll never happen.