Brad Paisley Quotes

We're all about trying to play better every night, not just singing hit songs ... we ad lib, and every night there's jamming .. it's almost like the Grateful Dead meets Buck Owens some nights, because we'll go off on little adventures and sometimes we do crash the bus!.

That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.

The wonderful thing about Jazz is its willingness to take chances.

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.

I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

That's why so much of the music today sounds so much alike, because there's no in-between. So it's kind of nice to still turn some buttons every now and then.

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.

Shellac was asked to do a recreation of our first album, but we've always been a band that improvised our sets. That's critical to the way that we function on stage. Whatever the mood takes us on stage can vary from night to night with what you feel like playing.

Music should always be an adventure.

The music is fun. The big difference performing it live is that we might get a little more heated, not as subdued, we'll stretch things out more. It's how you stay fresh after such a long time in the business.

The rule is to try and never play the same thing twice when you have the freedom to do that in the song.

My records are one thing. My live performances are something totally different because they're very improvised performances.

Jazz is something that's constantly changing. Its sole purpose is to let people improvise, to let them solo differently each time they play. And that's always been what I like best.

'Enlightened Rogues' we made like the earlier ones: whatever tune came up, whatever direction it went in, that's the way it went. That's what we'll always do. I think if we ever stop doin' that, we ought to quit.

The theory is that you don't play a song the same way twice because it's jazz. That's where I'm coming from.

Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.

If someone can relate my guitar solo to an exercise in a book... that's no fun at all.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

Eventually you'll take the phrases and rhythm patterns you've copped and begin to put your own mark on them

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.

I like people that can strap on a guitar and don't sweat the fact that you have to come up with a song in an hour. I want to work with someone who won't feel like they have to play along with Jason Molina. I want them to just have the confidence.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.