Paul Weller Quotes

Me and Jerry left because we felt we weren't getting anywhere playing our old songs in tiny clubs. The group was getting stale and staying behind the times.

It was very punk rock for me to take a stab at working with Justin Bieber. I don't know how people portray that, or 'Climax,' for that matter. But for me, it was the most adventurous thing I could have done at that exact moment.

I want to be the kind of artist who keeps pushing on every album. I don't want to settle on a sound.

I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

I think it's a change that I did not intend at the time but it is clear that, from The Flower of My Secret on, there is a change in my films. A lot of the journalists have very generously attributed this to my growing maturity.

I think all artists need to try to improve, or their work gets stale.

Hip-hop can be limiting and I refuse to accept limits.

A lot of the offers I get are for these innocent 16-year-olds, and I turn down a lot of stuff because it's the same-old same-old. The whole point of wanting to act is trying to change it up, and I want to experience everything.

A new medium always has a period when it is struggling inside the confining box of an earlier medium. Creators have to unlearn what they knew before they can see the fresh, uncharted vistas stretching before them.

I'm so happy people are seeing the eclectic side of me. I'm really honored to be able to push my voice into different sounds. Otherwise it all gets a bit samey same.

People are really set in their ways in how they produce records, and I was at least open enough to where I knew I wanted to do something totally different.

There's this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didn't want to be doing the same thing all the time. Every now and then, you crash and burn, but that's part of it.

If you look back, you get stuck in a year. I've seen rappers and singers get stuck in 2002 or 2005, and they can't get out.

I'm growing as an artist and expanding my range, and not pigeonholing myself by doing the same thing, over and over.

I want to do parts that are outside of the box.

Any time you're stepping out on a limb as an artist, it's scary, especially when you have a lot of success. When you're reaching a lot of people, the masses, it's easy to stay in that niche, you know? Especially when you're making a lot of money and you know there's a formula, it's easy to stay in that rut.

I think every time, before we do an album, we have a discussion where we sort of consider the idea of doing something radically different.

I've never made R&B. I've never made gospel. I've never made hip-hop - I don't think I'm going to, but I just want to keep challenging myself.

I've always been interested in kind of doing the thing that you weren't necessarily recommended to do.

I've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.

I could have pigeonholed us and wrote a whole record like 'Pumped Up Kicks,' and we would have been this breezy, nostalgic West Coast Beach Boys recreation band. That's not the type of writer I am. Once I try one style, I move on.

I think the music that I'm writing and the stuff I'm going to do as I age will age.

After years of doing composition, the risk is always that you might start to repeat and be cliche. Every time, I try find a way to be reborn again as an artist. Its not easy to reinvent yourself every time, as it takes a lot of creative energy, but I am happy to do it.

Most filmmakers give me the reference of my own songs; doing the same thing over and over again doesn't push you to do better.

When some artistes give a hit song, they keep repeating themselves in the same genre. I always try to create something new.