Ry Cooder Quotes

Miles Davis fully embraced possibilities and delved into it. He was criticized heavily from the jazz side. He was supposed to be part of a tradition, but he didn't consider himself part of a tradition.

The only intention I've ever had creatively, as a musician, is to be as different from myself as possible.

Lil Uzi and I gave Philly different sounds by stepping outside of the box and not sticking to the stigma.

The only way I'm comfortable with a new album is if I'm taking a new risk.

I hate it when bands keep making the same record over and over, so we're pushing ourselves to try new things and experiment in our writing approach.

We wanted to offer something new to our audience. I hate it when bands stop taking chances.

I think doing variations on a classical theme is a dangerous thing to do.

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

So many of the sounds that contemporary composers were trying to create were to be found in the traditional musics of the world. That was encouraging but also little daunting to think that you had to work so hard to be new and yet it was old.

I would have to say I'm bored with the standard rock, guitar solos, but I've done it for five albums now, and this time I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I wasn't interested in showing off any more.

I'm proud that with 'Bright Eyes' we've always experimented and tried to make a different record every time out.

The more I compose, the more I know that I don't know it all. I think it's a good way to start. If you think you know it all, the work becomes a repetition of what you've already done. I try to make sure that I don't repeat my music.

My whole career is based on taking a left turn after each film and doing the opposite of what I've just done.

Pop music is so structured, and I'm excited to try and challenge that in my own work.

Cage's Music of Changes was a further indication that the arts in general were beginning to consciously deal with the 'given' material and, to varying degrees, liberating them from the inherited, functional concepts of control.

All the big artists I talk to say that they are trapped in a formula and they are looking for the music of tomorrow.

People are really set in their ways in how they produce records, and I was at least open enough to where I knew I wanted to do something totally different.

To keep creating something with this type of music, you have to take it out of the box.

In studio films, everything has to be boxed in, everybody needs to know beforehand - this is comedy, this is sci-fi, this is drama - and what's the point of independent film if you don't get to experiment?

Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

I think every time, before we do an album, we have a discussion where we sort of consider the idea of doing something radically different.

Towards the end with Pantera - although I was never unhappy with the music we were making - it became one-dimensional, and we wanted to open things back up.

I'm not interested in re-creating the same blues I love so much. I'm interested in pushing boundaries.

I'm trying to play tunes in a new way, using all the same scales, harmonies, structures, but twist everything a little bit so that it comes out sounding different.

What people don't realize is that when you start making things outside of the convention of what is normal or good or 'best practices,' you're also shedding some of the baggage that comes with the concept of what a game 'should' be.