Mayer Hawthorne Quotes

I don't want kids listening to my music thinking it's for their parents. I want them to feel it's theirs.

Everybody always wants to rebel against their parents' music, but nobody listened to music louder than my dad.

It's interesting, as I said on the last tour in America, the audience actually came out, they had to have been the kind of fans who listened to my music via their parents, you know what I mean?

Music was around in my family in two ways. My mother would occasionally sing to me, but I was mostly stimulated by the classical music my father had left behind. I had an ear for music, I suppose, so that's what began my interest in music.

Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.

My parents are music fans, even though neither of them play an instrument. I was exposed to their record collection, so I love everything from Joni Mitchell to Bruce Springsteen.

It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.

If you are making music for other people, you will have to be aware of how people relate to it.

My upbringing made me think that real legitimate music is written, not heard.

Younger people are discovering my work, even though my reggae is not like theirs.

The whole heartbeat of the first record is young, which I think is what made it relatable to young girls.

I don't feel that old, but when I talk to these kids, I do feel old. Because I'm talking about taxes and all this other stuff that is very, very boring. And these guys are talking about music, and I'm like, 'Oh, I remember those days.'

My parents were always playing records: My mom was really into the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac, and my dad was more Billy Squire, Whitesnake, '80s hair metal. But I think there's that crucial point where you become an adolescent and you don't want to listen to your parents' music.

Today's parents grew up with the silly notion that music was meant to be heard.

Growing up, we had folk records.

I really don't know anything about music, and it's no great experience for me. But I do think that music has a purifying element.

I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.

The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.

Rock is young music, it is youth oriented. It just speaks for a generation.

My management tells me, Don't be optimistic, because it's the young people's world now. They want to hear what they want to hear, and you're a classic rocker. I don't know if you're gonna get the play.

People in England were coming up to me, saying, My mother and father turned me on to your music. This happened to me 20 years ago. When I was 40 they were saying that.

I think my mom always wanted to play the guitar, and somehow she projected that to me. So I started learning to play guitar when I was five years old, but actually I'd never managed to get the academic side of it. So even up to today, I don't know how to read or write music.

One of the things that was a blessing for me is my parents were music lovers. Neither of my parents played an instrument, but they were avid record buyers. And I grew up at every age listening to all kinds of music.

I can remember dancing around living room with my two sisters to the music of Paganini and Mozart. I can still remember my dad combing the newspaper, circling all the free concerts in town, and on the weekends, we would go as a family.

People say I look younger than the music I'm doing just because the songs are older. Hopefully I can keep my youthful look!