Bruce Johnston Quotes

Obviously, I never want to make the same record twice. I want to keep moving forward. That's the real challenge, I think.

We just want to outdo ourselves every time we come back somewhere.

Starting a band is the easy part. Once you've formed the band, you have to tell a story, and that story requires songs. And not just good songs, but great songs. After a while, great songs won't do - they have to be the best. Success doesn't make it any easier. Each time I start a new record, it's a brand-new search.

I'm forever learning and that's why I'm always able to create new styles and new dimensions of hip-hop.

The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece.

You have to always work against what you did before, and even against your taste.

I think that it can be said of a lot of artists, and myself included, that we made the same record over and over from the beginning.

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

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that every time you go to make a film, you're desperate to either do it better than you did it last time or to not repeat yourself.

Every record I do is a learning process for how I want to do the next one.

I really just compete against myself. I look at my previous material and try to surpass what I've done.

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

One has to always do better work than their previous film. It is essential to do something new every time.

I am the type where I don't worry about anything else but how to top what I did yesterday. My main goal is to top what I did before.

If people respect us as artists, they know we'll give them something different every time; they know we're pushing ourselves.

I could do another tour, make a record that's very similar, do similar venues. Or I could make a different record, do different venues, and grow. It's exciting to take it to new places, but it's never been my intent to be the biggest thing in the world. That's not what my drive is. I want to make what I want to make, and make a living off it.

Every time we record, and every time we go out live, we try and beat what we've already done.

After the first album, I felt like I needed to one up myself - get even bigger features - and I spent six months thinking about that and not making any music.

You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before.

I think, for every artist, the second album is the most terrifying one to put out because it can either boost your career, and everybody can't wait until your third album, or the second one is terrible, and 'He probably hit a plateau on his first one.'

I think we always have to put forth music that's better than the last.

Comfort is the enemy of the artist.

To look deeply into the lawn and see six shades of green - there is hardly that respite for you. And that's our job that we're doing. And it's even more demanding for someone like yourself, who is so extremely creative. But you have to move forward. You cannot just wallow or sit back and take in the accolades. They're wonderful, the accolades, and you appreciate them. But then you go on to the next moment. You have to always be going out to the end of the diving board and diving off.

If you want to be a virtuoso then you have to set your sights above me. You have to go beyond what I'm doing. And that's for you to figure out. Because if you can do that, then I'm going to be trying to go beyond you.

As an artist your trajectory just has to keep going up. the thing that subverts your next body of work is the work you've taken before.