Eddie Vedder Quotes

My real musical discovery started when I was 10 with Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5, and acts that I connected with because they were young when they were doing it, like me. Then I kind of came into my own a couple of years later; I found new artists that shaped my musical landscape. For instance, Kings of Leon played a big part in that.

When I was very young, there was a lot of music at home, mostly jazz. I was walking around singing and pretending I was in bands from a very young age. But the first song that was really personal to me was 'Blue Suede Shoes'.

I've got an article where my mum says that I used to run home from school to watch the Stones on TV. Right from when I was at college I wanted to be in that band.

There was something about Hank Williams, Jr. that I really latched onto from an early age.

My older brother was the guitar player in the neighborhood band. My parents were the cool ones that had the basement for rehearsal. Rather than hang with my peers after school, I wanted to just listen to the band. More than that, I wanted to play.

It was a pretty rough neighborhood where I grew up The really tough places were over around Third Avenue where it ran into the Harlem River, but we weren't far away.

At the age of eight, I discovered that I could write songs. My dad used to take them to the notary and register them so that nobody could steal them from me.

I had been inspired by an organ player named Earl Grant, who played organ and piano together. My mom took me to see him. So I went home, put my piano and organ together, too.

Music's been with me from the get-go. It was always around me as a kid. Dad got me my first guitar when I was 11 and, at school, if you wanted to be cool you had to be in a band.

I learned at an early age that I was given something special when I was born, and that was the gift of music.

Most things in my life I had before leaving home. Values, support, great family. I was shaped at an early age. A musician playing guitar, I wanted to be a folk singer.

When you've been raised in care, rap music isn't just about guns and sexism. They're talking about real things you can hang on to, problems of identity that you have sympathy with. It's not just about the music, with rap: when I was in care, it meant a whole lot more than that.

The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didn't have, 'I love Frank' on it, it had, 'I love AC/DC', 'Guns N Roses', 'Pearl Jam'. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.

I got a guitar when I was six and, instead of learning other people's songs, started to try to write my own, even at that young age.

My father had slowed down playing a little... I was 'round 10 or 12 years old. Every time he put his guitar down, I pick it up.

I've always listened to music while I write, but none of my work has been so directly impacted by a song as my new novel, 'So Cold the River,' for which the brilliant strings piece 'Short Trip Home,' composed by Edgar Meyer and featuring the incredible Joshua Bell on violin, inspired much of the story.

When I was nine, I was singing western swing: Roy Rogers and Patsy Cline. It got me noticed because no one my age was doing it, but it made me feel inferior because none of my friends could relate to it.

I probably wouldn't be singing if not for Michael Jackson. When I started singing, I didn't like my tone until my mom put me on to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, so listening to the way they used their instrument helped me get more comfortable with my own.

I used to dress like Roger Taylor when I was ten because I thought he was cool. In high school, I used to dress like Stephen Perkins from Jane's Addiction because I thought he was cool. You just want to be those guys when you're that age.

Banging on the piano while my grandmother was watching me. I'd run up to her and ask: 'How was that, Grandma?' And she'd say, 'That was beautiful, baby!' And I'd run back to the piano and play some more. I'm sure that's why I still play today, because I was encouraged from such a young age, 2 or 3.

I used to watch my father play the guitar and sing when I was a little boy. By the time I was 11, I knew what I wanted to do. My father really couldn't afford to spend $12 for a guitar for me, but he did. It was like an ordinary family spending $500 for a kid's gift.

I started off as a kid singing with my dad. My dad was my best pal. But he had seven kids, and I was the only one who was kind of interested in what he was playing and singing at the piano. And he was not only my dad, but he was my best pal, and I was interested in doing whatever he wanted to.

Hendrix was a perfect guitarist. And that's all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around.

Growing up and playing guitar with my dad and stuff like really influenced me. It definitely must've had an impact on why Miley wanted to sing and why I wanted to sing and play guitar as well.

I really wasn't into sports at an early age. I couldn't wait to get home from school and go straight to my bedroom and pick up the guitar and play it. It became an obsession with me. That's all I wanted to do was play guitar and learn every lick I heard on the radio.