M. Shadows Quotes

I love music, that it changes so much, but I also want to keep a bit of the country roots to make it country. I don't want to go too far away from it, or I would do pop music.

The biggest misconception about us is that we're just a rock band. We think our music is a cross-section of many genres; a hybrid of what the six of us have grown up on.

Everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd loves different styles of music, and our minds are very open when it comes to writing our songs and making the band true to what the band is, but also stepping out and doing something current.

We were so influenced not only by country music but by the rock bands of the '80s. Our focus was to bring in something different. Country music already had a George Strait and Alabama. We wanted to put some pop music in our show.

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

Stylistically, we're trying to push things in different ways, but it always comes out sounding like Tool no matter what we're trying to do.

Some bands sound like one song the whole album through. We've been all over the place because we are punk, hardcore, rock n' roll, metal, reggae - and I think sometimes it might be too much diversity, and kids are lost.

I think New Order have got their own sound. But what we like to do is experiment, using dance music and other things.

I'm quite an eclectic musician.

I'm not loyal to one genre. I want to mix it up.

I like to work with different musicians and producers to change the feels of every release.

With the R&B, gospel feel that 'Sparkle' has, that opens the door for my fans to be more accepting of that sound and also for me to try it.

The Seventies were just an interesting time for us because we were building the brand of the name but also varying the style of the music on each of the albums we did. Very creative time of us.

It was really terrific but Foreigner was nothing like Yes and that style did not suit our music.

I think anything I do will have an island feel, but I don't want it to be just that; I don't want to be put in a box.

I think it's a Blondie tradition that all of our albums sort of have a wide spread of styles.

I wanna record these girls individually. And then, I wanna cut a blues album on me. But all of it, original stuff, you know. When I listen to the blues today, it's like they all sounds similar. I wanna do something different, to try to add to the blues flavor.

If we just stick to one kind of music, our creativity is limited. We wanted to extend the audience for the cello, especially the younger people, and to show them how cool and how powerful and how diverse the cello can be.

It's sort of what jazz would be if it stopped being snobby and what rock would be if it stopped being stupid.

I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer.

Although my music is electronic, it has a lot of influences from my past, which is all sorts of genres; I've been in a rock-metal band for a long time, and I still feel like, personally, I have a lot of influence from that. My classical influence, you can find spots here and there.

I listen to a wide range of music, from country to pop to alternative rock, as well as Indian music. You know, what excites me are new ideas. And with a lot of the international hits - from Lady Gaga to Rihanna and others - you'd find excellent production and groundbreaking ideas that lift the music to a greater realm.

Music in general is looking for something new overall.

We are just fans of music, we are not fans of a specific kind of music. We just happen to be a rock band. Until we explain ourselves, sometimes people don't understand why we limit ourselves to just being a rock band. It's because that is what we like doing.

When I lived in the U.K., I recorded a lot of ska and rock-steady styles of Jamaican music. But people there weren't accepting it. So I began using a faster reggae beat.