Kenny Beats Quotes

I'm not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I'm not thinking about anything other than - I'm just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I'm just going to do it.

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

I am spontaneous and not a method actor.

I just do my thing onstage - it's just what happens. No one, even if they're into the band, can know it's as natural and real as anything can be. I don't think about it.

I never work out my leads. Everything I do is usually totally spontaneous. If someone says, 'That was good; play that again,' I'm not able to do it.

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

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

I don't work out a lead section and practice it for a day and then lay it down. I don't do that. The first time I do something I think is expressive or really cool, that's what's actually on the recording.

I'm not slick. I'm not polished. I think my strength is in reacting.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I ad lib. I've gotta bring my own into it.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

I was the same kind of father as I was a harpist - I played by ear.

I don't write any of my material down. I like to improvise and be spontaneous.

It's funny, man, sometimes you record something that you plan on re-doing later, but then when you listen back to it, you decide to keep it because you realize that it's gonna be real tough to beat!

One can only improvise what one knows.

One day I had an instinct to put on a kaftan and go out and sing. People liked it out of the blue. An artist should be instinctive.

I play by ear - I'm self-taught. And so everything I do is through that technique.

I'd listen to a song and say, 'Hang on, I like that piano thing,' so I'd play the guitar like that and get the vibe from it, and it just evolved from the get-go. It was pretty obvious what to do; You don't think about rock n' roll: you just do it.

I am someone who does not plan a lot. I go with the flow, and I just want people to know me as an actor.

All of my solos were improvised initially - I would go in and get my bearings and see what I came up with.

Whatever you see me do is spontaneous reactions on stage. It's nothing planned. It's nothing that I got in the room and tried to think of hard. It just happens through feeling.

Performing as a musician is a lot different than performing as an actor. As an actor, you can hide behind the character in the play, and there's a director and other actors. When you're a musician, you're right there. It's sort of like being a comedian. You're giving the audience in real time something authentic from yourself. As an actor, my bullshit meter was going off like crazy at my first attempts to find my own rock star.

I need to be spontaneous sometimes. Sometimes I find that the little detail or nuance that you add to it that's based on what's happening at the time that's not very rehearsed often ends up feeling like the funniest thing.

I have great faith in the actors. When they improvise, it always sounds better than the stuff I write in my bedroom. When they improvise, they make it sound alive.