Ian McLagan Quotes

I got the idea of what a band should be from listening to Booker T and Otis Redding.

Soul music has so many great artists who put their thing down. That's important.

I grew up listening to AM radio in the '70s and hearing all of that great soul and rhythm and blues music, which definitely influenced the way I sing. But singing gospel has made me a much more humble person. There are so many people who were geniuses who only a few people knew about when they were alive.

I love Motown, but I've obviously always been more of a Memphis soul fan. If it's Stax or Motown, I go Stax.

I like a lot of soul, but I also put a lot of folk into what I do.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

The Righteous Brothers were purely rhythm and blues, black music.

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

The falsetto stuff, it must be a reaction to the black gospel singers that I really enjoy listening to.

I think I'm more influenced, just in general, not by blues artists, but more by stuff from Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder is probably my biggest musical influence of all. And Donny Hathaway.

Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield, those are the people who informed me in playing the bass.

Soul music is soul music. It can be wrapped up in a neo soul package; it can be called hip-hop soul. But soul is soul, and it's been around; it will never go away.

In 'Kill Rock n' Roll,' the choruses came about at the moment I was listening to a lot of the Supremes, and if you listen to that part, you can hear a melody and a harmony there that's not too far away from what the Supremes would probably be doing, but there's heavy guitars in the back.

As far as R&B, I listen to a lot of old school like the Temptations and Chris Brown.

My dad was a soul fan and a singer himself, and he loved vocal harmony, stuff like the Beach Boys and Motown like the Four Tops, which was a big influence on me.

I love Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, and I want my music to reflect some of that.

I'm a mash-up of everyone. My influences would be Michael Jackson, Brandy, Aaliyah - those types of people. So if you can imagine them - and with me taking them, and then putting my own twist and the influence on it - that's musically what I would sound like.

My first album, 'Get Lifted,' was a hip-hop soul album that had some of its roots in the church, as far as the sonic choices, in the way that I sing and write songs. I have always had that as part of my background and part of my influence when I am making music.

Absolutely, I grew up listening to soul music. People like Stevie, Aretha, Ray Charles, Michael and Prince. My parents' record collection was all I had when I was a little kid. If it wasn't that, it was something else in their collection.

Hanson will be associated with 'MMMBop' and long blonde hair in the same way the Beatles are associated with mop tops and suits.

I love Marvin Gaye. I like jazz and all that stuff.

R&B is the one thing that has influenced every kind of music. Every artist that there is, from those that are sung the most to Adele - you know, she was so influenced by so many R&B artists and soul music - it's clear in her writing that that's where it comes from.

For those who are familiar with my work, 'Soulfire' is a return to how most people identify me, which is that soul-meets-rock thing.

I listened to everything. To the early Motown groups - the Four Tops and the Temptations - to Johnny Mathis, Gloria Lynne - my sisters loved her. Sarah Vaughan. Everything.

I fell in love with R&B music at a young age. The energy and aesthetic of that genre strike an emotional chord with me.