Ben Gibbard Quotes

Being able to take musical ideas through every iteration is attractive to me. Granted, not everyone's going to want to listen to that, but it should exist.

Hip hop is doing the new rock thing; there are no rules. They can do anything, really. And that's inspiring.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

None of my songs sound the same. None of them. I take R&B beats and put it as a rap song or hip-hop beats and put them as a R&B song. A lot of people are boring. I don't like boring music. Everybody sounds the same, like they copying.

I'm influenced by a lot of different genres of music. So I'm constantly trying to rework production and make things interesting in the live show and on records.

What I do is a bit broader in scope than a heavy metal band like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, ACDC and so on.

The only way I'm not going to follow other people in reggaeton is if I listen to other things. I get other melodies or sounds and put them in reggaeton and make it different.

'Waking the Fallen' truly encompasses everything that Avenged Sevenfold was at that time. It was us being fearless, us showing our roots in heavy metal, punk, rock n' roll, and not being afraid to try everything under the sun when it comes to writing music.

I don't like to write the same song twice.

I feel like my music is like - there are always new influences in there.

A lot of singers find a musical genre people like and stick with it. That's being a conformist. I sing ballads, rock, salsa, rap.

I've seen and learned enough to keep my music fresh and spread out.

Me as an artist, I've ventured off into doing all types of music. I'll do a jazz album, you know what I mean.

I love hip-hop and soul, but I desperately want to challenge it and see what I can bring to it.

Willow and I definitely talked about doing a collaboration. She really loves rock music, so she wants to come on and get crazy with me on a track. Which I would love, because she has a fantastic voice.

I'm the renegade of funk. I've made house, techno, rock, funk, reggae... That's why I've been on so many different labels.

They believed you can't mix rock, country, and rap, and that crossover is dead. I always knew it would work. And it will always work as long as you're really into it and like what you're doing.

I don't ever try to make a song better than my last song. I just try to make it different from my last one.

Being an American musician means being adventurous.

There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that's what was in our head for 'Get On Your Boots.' But actually, the song is much more punk rock.

I'm a huge stadium rock fan, but I'm also a fan of everything from Massive Attack to Peter Gabriel, U2, the Police, Radiohead, and Coldplay. I've realized that I love all forms of music and get excited when any artist goes crazy and creates something that is an experience.

You'll find little schools of musicians experimenting with different ways of making music in Brooklyn, all through Manhattan, in Queens, in Jersey, you know? The city is still bubbling with creativity.

I never liked blues and I really didn't like jazz. I liked Chuck Berry.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

It's a very subjective, personal, instinctive approach as musicians of saying, 'We don't want to replace what's around; we just want to widen the possibilities.'