Jim Root Quotes

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

We didn't go for music that sounded like blues, or jazz, or rock, or Led Zeppelin, or Rolling Stones. We didn't want to be like any of the other bands.

I just don't like to do a lot of the normal things expected of other artists. I'm not trying to be difficult; I'm just trying to stick with what it is I want to do.

My art and my creativities were totally something that was of my own heart and mind. I could never let anybody dictate to me what I should write and how I would write it.

I don't do any art to please any people.

Trends keep changing, but I have and will always do what I like to do!

What's the fun in doing conventional things? I would rather be known as someone who is unconventional. I like being unconventional. I like doing things which are different. That's what I like... It gives me a boost as an actor.

I think it's boring when everybody wears the same brands or the same styles, and it's like, 'Oh, this is the new trend.'

When you have your own identity as a singer, you don't have competition.

As a creative, you have to be your truest form. You can't worry about fitting into whatever boxes people want to put you in.

There's nobody like The B-52s. But doing stuff on my own, I can also express more personal songs.

My music is not like everybody gonna love it, it's really what I make of it.

Metallica lives in a little bubble. We just do our own thing. We're not part of any trends or waves or fads. We can just do our own thing, all the time. It's a great luxury. I don't think we were really appreciative of it until recently, and really understood that it is what keeps us alive. It's great to be able to have the freedom to run around and do all this crazy stuff, and at all cost, avoid making another record, just to piss our managers off.

I couldn't be an artist who was told what to do, what to be, what to sing.

I think that was my biggest fear - censoring myself and putting myself into a cookie cutter to be representative. But I think what I realised is we don't need that.

I don't want to be seen in a way where all I can do is what people expect of me.

People classify things and that's fair enough. But if somebody wants to make something different, that doesn't make them any less of an artist.

I want to stay away from trends and do what we want to do musically.

You don't have to make yourself look like people expect you to look.

The people that have inspired me the most were dancers and choreographers. Even growing up, if I dealt with any pressure to be a certain way, I knew that as an artistic lane, dancing was the one that was a little more freed up - like, no one in my family is really doing that; I can be that person.

It's always hard to break an independent picture from the pack.

When I can make music and don't have to think about anyone else's ideas or voice - when I'm making something that only I can make - it feels good. It's nice when you can find a sound that only you can make. No one else can make 'Cosmogramma.' No one else can make 'Until the Quiet Comes.'

I want to be my own artist and reflect my creativity.. I don't want to be turned into a pop princess; that's not who I am.

When directors tell me they want a song like one, I tell them no song should be like another. I don't listen to directors.

No one's telling Tarantino what to do. You might like it or you might not like it, but the reality is he's getting his own vision out there.