M. Shadows Quotes

At a young age, I was introduced to Joni Mitchell by my mum. My dad was into progressive rock.

My dad put me onto Phil Collins and Dream Theater and all that stuff.

I grew up loving classic rock music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones - and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What is this?' I was eight and it changed my life.

I grew up with The Beatles, Bob Marley and Talking Heads. I like the melody-with-rhythm aspect of music - there's so much to discover still.

My first record I ever got was 'Full Moon Fever.' My dad gave me a copy when I was maybe nine years old or something. And I listened to the heck out of that record. I loved that record.

I started to get turned on to a bunch of different bands when I was in middle school/high school. I was turned onto The Who and Black Sabbath and Yes, and stuff like that. But Rush I obsessed over. I wanted to have every album. I wanted to know storylines, read all the lyrics, learn the songs and everything.

My dad is actually an amazing guitarist, and he always had an incredible record collection, which is how I discovered things like Jimi Hendrix and Santana. I'll always be grateful for that.

What made 'Dark Side Of The Moon' so great is some of the mystique and where it was coming from and just the authenticity of it.

My dad turned me onto Led Zeppelin, the Stones, and the Who, but Madonna and pop music came from my mom.

My mom listened to the Beatles and Elvis, a lot of different types of music.

I think when I was a kid, and I was in England and it was all about The Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Beatles and that's what my dad was into.

I had always loved music. I grew up listening to classic country, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard. My dad loved Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley. So I kept going to class and started getting totally into playing guitar and teaching myself these songs.

When 'The Dark Side of the Moon' was a new album in 1973, a friend of mine walked into my room where I was working with a copy in his hand and said, 'You really have to do a play about this album.'

My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else?

My mum was a big fan of E.L.O. and Elvis Costello. She used to play that, consistently, all the time when we were kids. And my dad, he would claim to be a singer... You know, he loves singing, and he used to sing a lot when he was a kid and at parties and stuff like that. So I come from a very party-musical family.

My favorite bands were Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad. If you listen to some of my early music, you can hear it.

I grew up listening to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and every record those bands put out was very unique in its own right. I have that mentality. too: if a song sounds like something I've already done, then I'll throw it out, because I want each record to be a progression.

I like the way Billy Idol sings. Mommy turned me on to him.

At any given time I'm listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King's Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear... the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

Growing up in Hitchin was comfortable and easy enough. My parents had some great records - and some not-so-great ones - and that's where I got introduced to Motown and the Stones and Springsteen.

I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.

When I was around 13 or 14, I started getting really into songwriting. And one day, I was rooting through my mum's old tapes and records, and I found 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley. I remember so vividly the first time I put it on. It blew my mind: his voice, the way he could play the guitar. I must have listened to the album over and over for weeks.

My parents were big music fans, and my dad plays music, so I grew up with Madonna, Frank Zappa, the Beatles, Alice In Chains... it was all over the place. I had a Third Eye Blind record, but I also had Korn, Courtney Love, and Shania Twain.

The first song that made me interested in music was 'Oh, Pretty Woman' by Roy Orbison. It was the guitar intro, that riff, that I really liked and made me listen in a different way.

Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music.