St. Lucia Quotes

My biggest challenge was to make sure that the songs I did were who I am.

It took me a long time to find my own voice, even after I started making my own music.

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.

I think every artist subconsciously wants to evolve themselves. Sometimes they get stuck in ruts because of pop culture, peer pressure, stuff like that. But what excites me most is exploring my own musical insights and expanding upon them.

In the past, I tried to be more of a typical session guitarist. I wasn't so concerned with impressing anybody.

But at this phase of my life, I want to write and not have to think about whether a song is going to be a hit. I want to explore the music that inspires me, and I don't want to ape myself.

As I've gotten older, I've found that I'm not afraid anymore to throw my influences into making a record.

I wanted to create a body of work that I was proud of. It's come from honesty and integrity, without forcing anything from myself, the ideas had to come instinctively and organically. Whether that translates to people in that way, it's kind of out of my hands now.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

What I decided was I'd be happier not being in the confines of a corporate infrastructure producing music. That's when I was free, and it opened up the door to have a different personality and incarnations. That's really when I had success in my music life. I was able to license my music.

I'm not very good at sounding like other people. When you're going through your 20's and trying to get a break and that kind of thing, and you're trying to do something that sounds like film music, your idea of what it would be, it never really worked out for me and it's only really when I learned to trust the fact that I could only really sound like me.

People always want to talk about who I was, but I've always been singing, always been experimenting with pop music.

All my songs are where I am.

Black music has increased my enjoyment of what I do. It has increased my range, my ability to reach into myself and accept myself.

'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.

I think I have allowed my voice to experiment with the different genres. And I think that I have just really enjoyed the journey of getting to know my voice and seeing what it's capable of, what it's not capable of.

Growing up in a band is weird - you get stuck hanging on to what it is you think you are. But what I took into Depeche was that punk ethic, that you don't have to be accomplished to be a musician. If you've got ideas, you can do this.

He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

My dream is to one day just be me and my guitar. I'm working myself to the core. Who am I, underneath everything else? I'm still on that journey, to find that core.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

I kinda went back to that period between '88 and '94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

I loved the Brazilian music I played. But this is finally me. For the first time I think it's really me.

I try to make my music interesting to me first, then hopefully other people will find it interesting, too.

To create something you must be something.