Manila Luzon Quotes

I'm very lucky; I have a lot of knowledge. My favorite band is The Beatles, so a lot of inspiration for my music comes from them, too.

It was my love for the guitar that first got me into music and singing. Growing up, I was inspired by The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Damian Rice was a huge influence for me musically.

I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that.

I was just learning to play guitar when Tracy Chapman came out. She wrote these songs, she played them by herself and I so admired her for that.

Anyone who takes the craft of songwriting seriously I radiate towards. Spending time with Daryl Hall was a dream come true. I picked his brain a lot because Hall And Oats is timeless.

I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.

I'm only really good at making music. I wasn't convinced when I started out, but then I heard the first Stone Roses' LP.

I started singing to this one John Legend record; it was called 'Each Day Gets Better,' or something like that. I started to realize, 'Wow, I really sound like this dude. If I keep doing this, maybe I can sound dope like John Legend and still rap.'

Really, music is what I'm interested in, and the lyric part of it came from just having to have something to sing.

I was feeling really restless in my hard-rock band. I wanted to learn more about storytelling in music, and that's what country music is.

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.

When you're talking about your own music every day, listening to bands, going to festivals, you can kind of lose sight of your initial connection with music. Instrumental music - especially jazz - helps me refocus.

I like a composer called Henry Purcell, and I love to listen to Neil Young.

Being on 'Nashville' and working with some incredible people like T-Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller - so many wonderful, incredible musicians that I've been blessed to play with and observe - that has continued to shape the process of arranging music, writing music.

I get to focus on being a musician sometimes, and I get to focus on being a vocalist sometimes.

I'm not a singer. I'm a musician, which is different.

I've studied several guitar players and songwriters, mostly from Al di Meola to Dimebag Darrell, from Freddie Mercury of Queen to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Bradley Nowell of Sublime.

I also met, early on Ella Fitzgerald. Her songbooks are some of the most amazing bodies of work.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince - for the vocals, anyway.

Early inspirations included Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie... Those were the people I actually wound up studying just to hone my craft.

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I've had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.

I was someone who knew what they wanted to do for so long. I was always fascinated by music, always a student of pop.

In order to write music, you need lots of Tabasco sauce.

I became a melodic writer after 'Gunn.'

I think if I wanted to get to a point where I could actually grow in my music, I had to almost step away from sampling so much and start making the kind of music that people wanted to sample.