Kenny Chesney Quotes

To listen to my first record, it doesn't sound like me.

I think that it can be said of a lot of artists, and myself included, that we made the same record over and over from the beginning.

I just think that there is something that keeps us together, to keep doing what we're doing. I can't really put my finger on it other than each record is like a little snapshot of my life at that particular moment, the way I play, the way I sound, the way I wrote, the way I sing, I can hear it.

I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part.

That's the sound we developed, and that's how we played. It took us a while, but we found it.

I'm pretty self-conscious, so I tend to work in a way where I say what I need to say and get out rather than revisit things. It's kind of a collage style. I realized that it had more emotional weight that way. I'll always be in the developmental stages as far as being a songwriter.

I always thought of myself as the piano player in the band. That, I suppose, I'm confident about, and I guess my songwriting developed as I went along and I got a certain amount of confidence in that. The songs are like my kids, I'm proud of all of them for one reason or another.

I think it was Duke Ellington who once said that we're always most pleased with our current record. I mean, you have to assume that you learn from one, and you do something better next time.

Albums are like diaries. You go through phases, technically and emotionally, and they reflect the state that you're in at the time.

I've been making music for a long time, since I was very young, but at the same time, I'm still exploring what works for me. I feel like I'm just starting out.

After touring with David Bowie last year, I was inspired to look at what I wanted to do as an artist, and I realized I wanted to go back to the music I fell in love with when I was eight years old.

I think it's natural for an artist to explore as they evolve.

My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.

You know, if Kelly Clarkson wants to do country albums because that's what inspires her, then let her do it. Look at Kanye West or Ludacris... they aren't rappin' and cussin' like they were on their first few albums, so what does that make them? It's all in the eye of the beholder and the listener. We all use our outlet to grow ourself.

The first album was a very successful record. It made me very visible and it's an immediate association, but I don't do that anymore. Now I'm true to myself as an artist again. I'm more vocally oriented.

For the last three years, I've been working on 'Bromst,' and that's all that encompassed my brain. And now that it's out, it will change the way that I think musically.

The early Bon Jovi stuff I can't stand. I just think we didn't have our stylistic voice. But some people love some of that stuff.

I think when you follow a band, you're following a - and I don't like to use the term 'brand,' but you are following a kind of style, if you like. So I think you have to accept that there will be different people involved from time to time.

Then I came in twice a week - for my own enjoyment as well as to be a guide. And then we started to apply some of the splinters of the ideas back into the piece.

You're always in a different headspace when you make each record, so hopefully they're all different. You just pick up things that you wish you hadn't done on the first one.

From activist stage, I just spoke and said whatever I had to say. When the writing started, I would just read it. Then I had the interest into going into musical aspects. When that happened in '86, I liked the result of work we did in the studio.

What formed me as a musician, a songwriter, the sound and personality of my band, a whole lot of that happened well before 1991.

You write a song about how you think at the time, and then gradually you drift away from that, and when it's far enough in the past, that's when you think, 'Now I have to write something new.'

I was 17 when I released my first record. I didn't really figure out what I wanted to say, how to get a message and put it together.

My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.