Xavier Rudd Quotes

Songs always get better after you start playing them live.

The 'Daryl's House' thing has made me into a live musician even more than I ever was, and even in the way I record.

My history is really playing live - not writing or recording.

It's great to play live. I love it and appreciate it more than I did in the early days. It's a central part of being in A-ha.

I really wanted to make a record that would feel fun to play live.

Yeah, playing live for me is the essence of what we do.

Some people are denizens of the studio. I'm more of a denizen of the live appearance. I love the live thing.

I've always enjoyed playing live onstage.

I've worked with a band, and it's nice to have someone to travel around with, but I didn't like it as well on stage.

Touring is a whole other animal for me and a whole other skill. But I'm having a lot of fun figuring all that out and switching it from internal to external and putting on a show.

I have started to record some demos so hopefully in the near future I can play live.

My dream has been to have my rock band behind me, play live, and entertain.

Every performer wants to sing live. That's what I live for.

I go to a lot of rap shows and sometimes take what they do from a performer's aspect, how they interact with the crowd. I always have a DJ with me on the road, as well as some dancers.

I would rather do a play because it's instantaneous. You go on the stage, and you know whether it's happening or not. Somebody asked me 'What is acting?' And I said, 'Acting is listening.' And if you ain't listening, nobody's listening.

You don't really know a song until you play it live.

Live stage is being made as you go along. You feel the energy. There's nothing like a live audience.

For me to call myself a musician, it's necessary to play live, and it rewards so much - not just in the pay cheque sense but what it does for my playing. I feel it through a tour - I feel it at the end of a tour - all that I've gathered, and especially now that I am improvising so much.

All your travelling is together, you eat together, you're on stage as a band together, when you get to the sound-check the band and the crew are all together.

The stage is the best experience in the world. It's a great compliment to be able to share the music, because people can hear my album but they don't get to make the connection in the same way as when it's one-to-one.

I think we've always been better live.

In the studio, you can always stop, rewind and do it again, but on stage, you can never do that - it's a different energy. It separates good bands from bad bands, being able to play, perform and really capture an audience. I think that's the hardest part.

We always work at least a month to six weeks before we go on the road, usually for something like eight to 12 hours a night. It took six weeks to do it this time. We just play virtually everything we know.

When I'm on stage, it's such a spiritual moment that I hope, even when we hit 'Fallon,' you can feel that through the TV. I have this whole horn section that's part of New Power Generation; I have an amazing crew of musicians behind me. It's their energy, too.

Traveling the world was a constant thing, rich with experiences. But all of it was relative to being able to play live onstage and really stretch out.