Chris Robinson Quotes

The most important thing is that you honor that musical integrity, whether you make music that sounds like ABBA or you make music that sounds like Void.

I would have quit before I went rock-n-roll. I know one way, and that's natural, and when I can't make it, I'll come home and stay. I believe in my music.

I'm totally open to exploring different types of music. I just have to always remember to be true to who I am.

That's what rock music is, I think - constantly searching for authenticity, and being as honest as possible.

When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.

The drive to create music that is pure is my highest priority. Sometimes I'll get extremely technical, and other times I'll just kind of go with the gods of music.

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

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with.

Music should always be an adventure.

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

I've always wanted to make records that rock like hell. But also, I've never wanted to compromise that Country place deep inside.

I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm just writing songs that I like, and that's where I've always come from.

'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.

I try to get a degree of realism in my music.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.

If one uses music that one does not really love, then one will not succeed in making it one's own.

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.

Any band that is out there chasing it is doing more destruction to music then someone who is out there playing what they truly feel.

You look at Michael McDonald and people like that; I think they just tried to write music that was true to themselves. That's our bottom line. Whatever people view us as, I think as long as we try to create good music that will win out in the end.

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

I don't always have to be on what is the newest in music is. I'm slowly educating myself in music. For me, I feel more free in not knowing everything in what I'm doing. You can start making up too many rules for yourself. It should just be love and fun and feeling good.

Music is there for us to explore. To intentionally limit yourself to one, two, or three genres is limitation at its worst. Music is huge; it's a gigantic history lesson, and if you are true music fan or a musician, you should explore it. It's all right there in front of us.

Music's supposed to come from the heart. I felt like that if it ever got mechanical, I was going to back away from it.

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.