Mose Allison Quotes

I've always had a close connection to both rock and classical music.

My songwriting and my style became more complex as I listened, learned, borrowed and stole and put my music together.

That's kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock 'n' roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin' through.

It's amazing to me to see how bands evolve and how they take all their influences and come up with their own sound.

I listen to all types of music so I'm influenced by everything.

I think that one of the things that influences me most as a composer is to what extent I can deconstruct and reconstruct the material that I'm working with.

I had been inspired by an organ player named Earl Grant, who played organ and piano together. My mom took me to see him. So I went home, put my piano and organ together, too.

It's the coolest part about writing music. I don't know how other people work, but so much is derived from some amalgamation of all these different songs that I love. That's why they jump all over the place.

I can make any type of music, so I wouldn't want to describe myself as having one type of sound. I think music is about keeping it diverse.

I'm quite an eclectic musician.

If it comes out sounding like Dixieland jazz or classical or punk or rock or even slightly metal, that's because that's where I'm going to find inspiration.

A lot of times Mick will play me different things, or I'll listen to a cassette, and out of twenty ideas or whatever, I'll find two or three that are just blowing me away, and we'll start working on them right away.

If you looked at my iPod, you would get a trip out of all the different music, from the real heavy metal to bluegrass to classical.

I usually have an idea of how I want a song to sound, but I don't always know how to get there.

I play guitar all the time, and I'm constantly thinking of songs... Every time I pick up a guitar, I come up with different riffs, all different bands I've been in. Sometimes there is a song or riff that could only belong with Slipknot, and I just can't use it for anything else, regardless of whatever happened.

When I first started singing, I didn't know which direction to take - I sang rock & roll and all kinds of things.

I'm influenced by a lot of different genres of music. So I'm constantly trying to rework production and make things interesting in the live show and on records.

I couldn't find a way to write music with numbers and rules and schedules. So I tried to forget the academic idea of music and started to see if it was possible to do creative work, taking in all the influences I wanted to keep.

Musically, my palette is eclectic.

I tend to want to form bands and then create new music within them. Queen was an exception, and we joined forces because it just seemed to work when we played together.

A lot of artists have a super-specific musical hero they definitely try to hone in on. I'm basically inspired by everyone. I don't have one particular artist who I'm super-obsessed with.

Just based on the primary adage of the necessity breeding innovation, it was just like 'Well, what makes me the guitar player that I am?' and I feel like I listen to so much different music, and I'm a student of so many genres of music, and I feel like it's fun to apply those things and anything super applicable to any type of music.

I like to tinkle at my piano when I'm working out a new song - I just put my fingers down and see what comes out.

Composers don't just sit in a room and write things that are in their heads, they actually listen to a lot of music, pop music, jazz, rock and roll, any combination of music that catches their ear.

Ritchie Blackmore was a huge early influence on me, but after that I had to find my own way ... Johann Sebastian Bach was probably the most influential guy ever on me ... Vivaldi, Beethoven and eventually Paganini ... all of a sudden I was thinking in all these other areas, instead of blues riffs.