Bryce Dessner Quotes

I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music.

I feel my voice can fit in many things so it's very interesting to combine things and music styles.

I'd written songs with lots of people, from one spectrum to the other.

As an artist, you have to express yourself. I make no excuses for my versatility. I grew up singing classical arias, but I love rock n' roll and jazz standards.

I try not to get trapped in any one musical or visual style at all.

Barriers have been broken: rappers are singing, and singers are rapping. You might catch a rapper on a rock song, a pop artist on a hip-hop song - there are so many different things that are going on today. That is the same way in which we live our lives; we're all over the place. I like to try different things.

It never gets boring for me because there's so many different things to explore in the studio. The studio's become the sanctuary that people have come in and found new things out about themselves, as weird as that sounds. But it's true, I'm no different. I've made some crazy hard records, and I've made a jazz album.

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.

Rock is about finding who you are. You don't necessarily have to play your instrument very well at all. You can just barely get by and you can be in a rock band.

I never thought that I would be creating my own 'cross-over' genre. What I did was very real and organic. I have worked in so many different styles so it all just came together.

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

When I started writing, I just wanted to do something different and creative. I first thought neo-soul was a good pathway for me, so I tried that out but realized I didn't want to be placed in that box.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

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.

If we have to put music into baskets, then the progressive rock bands I fell in love with as a teenager made sounds that shaded into jazz, folk, metal, and in the case of the wonderful (and sadly missed) Jon Lord, modern classical music.

'Take Me Apart' doesn't feel cohesive in a singular way but in a varied way. You can fixate on individual songs, and there are references from all over the place: Anita Baker to Bjork. I wanted to show all the facets of myself.

I've always had a close connection to both rock and classical music.

I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.

My last two records that I made were both quite pointed in one direction and I think I do my best stuff when it's all over the map, when there's a couple traditional things, a couple pretty rocking things.

I don't think anyone has exhausted the range of sound possible in a conventional rock band, but people do become slaves to their own easiest techniques.

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.

Guitar is the best form of self-expression I know. Everything else, and I'm just sort of tripping around, trying to figure my way through life.

Musicians are always eclectic. Musicians are always curious and hungry for new things.

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

I don't have a classical-music mentality. I haven't been taught that way, and it doesn't fit my character, either.