Avi Kaplan Quotes

I think people need to see Prince live to really understand how remarkable he is. He has always been inspiring because he is never afraid to break rules or barriers or invent something new - and if you love fashion, then you need to be able to do that.

To passively get up and play a bunch of old songs wouldn't have really motivated us. So we are bringing the new material into the set and it goes down really well.

Whenever I sing, I try to make it different, the sound that you've never heard before, and put something new, which people love.

We always want to do covers, but we found it kind of boring to do covers of bands in our genre, and we were always asked to do those.

I've just had this idea pop in my head of trying to learn a new song every da, and try and play it that night. That's been fun for me because it's a little bit of a scary adventure, playing a song for the first time in front of people and letting it just be what it is.

David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C'mon - Van Halen doing 'Dancing in the Streets'? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else's music.

Any new ideas go into PiL. My inspiration is everything that the human being gets up to. I don't listen to any music when I'm in PiL-zone, because influences can poison your well. Otherwise, I listen to anything.

Each gig should be unique. You're always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear.

I have a curiosity that compels me to find ways to make music that are fresh and new.

When I'm making the music, I feel like everything I throw out has to work. It counts. Because if you don't have people turning they neck all the way around to see what it is, it ain't stick on the wall.

When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards.

It is all about being open and paying attention to the music in your head. I think most people have original music playing in their heads from time to time.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

It's so important to me that I feel like I'm doing something that's never been done before, whether that's in the show, or I'm writing a song. I can exist in this little box here, but I have to do something new with it.

You have to keep surprising your audience.

I want to be a band that people haven't seen.

It's just a way of trying to get to a third thing that's not particular to any quote-unquote genre. It's been great for me; it's really opened me up and gotten me to use that part of my imagination. It's very scary in a lot of ways, and just as exciting.

There are always new things to experience, internalize then write about. This process is ongoing with me. It never stops. The opportunity to reach new audiences with all of the music that we have made is thrilling.

A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.

What I do is, I look at rock guitar players, and I say to myself, 'What is this guy doing? What does he have that can inspire me?' I try to see what other people are doing and take what they have and turn it and twist it into my own thing.

I have a lot of maneuvers in my back pocket, so to speak. And to me, the thing is to always surprise the audience so they're always seeing something new, and not just get stuck in the same rut.

Creating something new is the difficult part. To make it and build it and get everyone to follow? Amazing.

I've never sampled just one artist, I'm known for my reputation and my creativity.

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

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let's put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!