Bryce Dessner Quotes

I was enamored with music at a very young age. Everything started with kundiman, then evolved to Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, and eventually classic rock music.

A lot of people ask how I ended up doing classical music given that I'm in a rock band. The truth is that it's the other way around. I was trained as a classical musician and then started playing in a rock band later.

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

I really haven't strayed too far, musically, from my roots.

In between 15 and 20 - probably at around 17 - my interests switched from hard rock to punk rock. And then by 20 they were circling out of punk rock back into Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the stuff that I didn't get to when I was younger.

As you grow older, you learn to appreciate all the artistry. I'm actually on my way back to the blues, you know, that my mothers and fathers liked.

I was born and raised in Germany, so I was classically trained. Classical has been deep in me from a totally early age. Then, as a teenager, I picked up the guitar and was really into rock music.

I didn't grow up with classical music. My father was a folk music singer.

I like soul, I like rock, I like new wave, I like punk music, I like blues, I like jazz, and I was brought up on all of them from a young boy all the way to my teenage years, when I was wild and crazy, in college.

If you actually go back and listen to my first album, there are some things on there that are kind of rock 'n' roll.

I used to play in bands and my dad, he's a big Beatles fan, so I grew up on a lot of Beatles and you kind of find your own way in music.

I was a huge prog rock fan as a kid in high school, and I'm so thankful for that.

I feel like Nashville has really embraced me with open arms. I was a little worried at first; you know, everybody knows about my immediate past, which is rock music. But everyone is coming to find out that I've been singing country music my whole life.

Music is progressive, you get out, you experiment with new people and you grow.

I grew up with my parents always listening to rock music. My dad wanted me to play guitar, but I always had more of an ear for drums. He really wanted me to be a guitar player, like him.

Now that rock is turning 50, it's become classical in itself. It's interesting to see that development.

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly. But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music.

People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.

At the end of the day I want to be the guy who experienced music in all type of ways, with hip-hop being the roots of it.

We had a really vast music collection and I was raised around rock'n'roll, it's just the way it was.

It was the early days of Rock 'n' Roll in this country. We were all struggling to learn music, it might be Country, Jazz, Classical, Blues or even Rock 'n' Roll.

My family were all into classical music, and I found that very intimidating.

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.

My father was always playing this ethnic blues stuff around the house, and both my parents played. Then one day my father brought home Big Bill Broonzy, and there he was sitting in our living room playing, and blues was in my heart from the time I was 12 years old.