Ryan North Quotes

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

Usually I like to improvise. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the piece, I like to improvise because I think it brings certain freshness and a reality to it, as long as it doesn't go too far out of the box.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or, 'What you're doing isn't jazz,' are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly.

The rule is to try and never play the same thing twice when you have the freedom to do that in the song.

Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.

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

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

Especially with Fantomas, i'm just trying to stretch out what the band can do. Figuring out, really, on the job or on recordings, what I can or can't get away with.

'Enlightened Rogues' we made like the earlier ones: whatever tune came up, whatever direction it went in, that's the way it went. That's what we'll always do. I think if we ever stop doin' that, we ought to quit.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

You just keep playing. If someone special comes along and organizes it in a new way, then you'll have another approach and everybody will jump on it to try to learn.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

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.

But I've always liked to be the kind of drummer and musician who likes to go outside of what's expected of me, and I've always been able to do more than you necessarily hear with every band I've ever played in.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

I have a curiosity that compels me to find ways to make music that are fresh and new.

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

One has to draw upon one's own musical thoughts and one's own musical acumen, and not to be afraid to let that come into one's work. Perhaps that comes with more experience, but perhaps it also comes with daring, and believing that you should.

I got to realizing that I wanted to record, I wanted to experiment. And doing those same old songs the same old way - I said, 'I think it's time for me to have some fun.'

Once we're inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

Many times in music, if you are given limitations, it expands the creativity.

I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close.

We didn't say, 'Hey, we're gonna pick a bunch of cover songs,' or, 'We're gonna write an original song that has to sound like this, because we're a metal band, so we're gonna cover some metal songs.' We did the opposite. We just said, 'We're gonna have fun with these songs, and we're gonna try different things.'

I wasn't trying to sound like anybody else. Basically, I was just experimenting all over the place.