Mike Portnoy Quotes

I don't want to be a full-time member of Pink Floyd all my life.

Reggaeton is what opened the doors for me, and I'm always grateful for that. I'll do reggaeton for life, but I want to show that I'm an artist who can do everything.

When I perform, I like to immerse myself in the music, and I just try to get off on the diversity of music.

When you keep the caliber of musicians very high in the band, people are going to come and go. Some of them will be people who have to try various things, it's natural.

I grew up listening to everything. I have such a love for music, but I don't want to make the same album over and over again.

I look at my career as a body of work, not just Queens of the Stone Age records. I'm in Eagles of Death Metal, I'm in Them Crooked Vultures; I make records with other people.

The great thing about rock-n-roll is you realize the top of the mountain is big enough for more than one band.

I've explored the worship side, the pop side, and the film scoring side of me.

I'm having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

I never left music, I just left the music scene.

We were never hip, which is fine with me. We aren't that interested in that whole situation. But all the times how we tried and failed to get across in our music, we actually succeeded on 'Superstar Car Wash.'

I have a soft spot for 'Wind of Change' because it was my first one, and it was a departure from Humble Pie - very much so. It showed me the spectrum of what I could do.

I want to explore all genres.

After I left Dream Theater, and I was doing Avenged Sevenfold, Twisted Sister... all these other things, I made a lot of new fans in a lot of new areas.

The whole reason to make a solo album is to express what you can't express with the B-52s. The B's are so much about fun and partying and dancing.

I think the main focus as a musician should be to play the music you love to play, and the rest is going to come naturally.

Make music when I want to in whatever style I would like to. That is something that I know that I'm not the only Nightwish member who has that. That's a luxury we can take, and we will.

I love stretching myself musically.

I don't regret any of the musical decisions I have made.

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.

The most important thing is that you honor that musical integrity, whether you make music that sounds like ABBA or you make music that sounds like Void.

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

I'm continuing to learn more about music - it's an ocean, and you can never really say that you know everything. I'm grateful that I'm still living and making music among the greats.

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do, and then just go for it.