Tones and I Quotes

Busking is the essence of what I do. It's made everything possible.

I was the highest-paid street performer, probably, in the history of Chicago. I was making like $800 a day.

When I moved to the East Village in the late seventies, I wanted to be a street performer, so I practiced daily. I never did work up the skills or the courage to perform on the street, though.

I was as happy doing theater in New York for little or no money as I am now doing television for more money. The happiness, I guess, comes out of it being a good job. The success has to do with the fact that it's a good job that will continue.

Like what you do, if you don't like it, do something else.

In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.

Career-wise, I feel very lucky to have always been able to follow my creative path.

I'm a complete and utter busker.

Life is too short to be doing work that doesn't make you feel happy and fulfilled. I'd rather wait for the right project, as opposed to just taking whatever is handed to me.

I was a street performer for two years.

I used to be a street singer in San Francisco.

I began singing in dive bars and really small clubs. I dragged my piano down the stairs, and I went down the street with my keyboard, and I would go to every different dive bar that I could get to agree to let me play. I'd call and pretend I was Lady Gaga's manager.

You get way better from playing to the passing public. You learn how to entertain. But it took me a good three years out on the promenade to figure that out. You also learn what makes them stop dead in their tracks and what doesn't.

In a typical day, I would wake up about 8 A.M., pile all my stuff into my mom's minivan - my guitar, my amp, CDs to sell, a table and a rug - drive it down to the street, and unload it all. I'd wait until about 12, then play for two hours. You could only play in two-hour intervals, so then I would move it all somewhere else.

Maybe if you see me begging on the streets, you might find me doing The Stone Roses the next day.

I was on the train; I did play, but I also played in bars, in the streets, at birthday parties for people who discovered me on the train.

I'd get a train to some town and wander about to find a decent spot. Sometimes I'd play for three hours; sometimes I'd get moved on after three songs.

I just want to do stuff that gives me work satisfaction.

I'm so lucky to not have to busk anymore, but I realized as soon as I didn't need to do it that I really missed it.

Without busking, there is no Fantastic Negrito.

If you think of people, the majority of us, we can't do what we really love. I am really grateful that I can work with my dream.

Well, the first Australian tour I literally just took busking to the stage.

I began my show business career playing violin in San Francisco at the corner of Market and Taylor. I understand that there is a theater there now.

To have meaningful work is a tremendous happiness.

I grew up in a really rural town, Stratford, Ontario, with 30,000 people. There's a big festival thrown in the town. A lot of people travel from all over the world to see it, and growing up, I actually used to busk on the street. I'd play my guitar, sing, and people would throw money in the case.