Layne Staley Quotes

During my stage shows, I am so energetic. It's constant! I just don't stand still. I actually got given a mic stand from my team to say 'Just calm down. Stand still for at least two songs.' But now I just pick it up and walk around with it.

No one knows this, but when I would play the clubs back in '65, '66, they used to call me 'Screaming Chicken,' 'cause I would go out and scream, fall on the ground, beat myself, smash stuff, jump through the ceiling, roll on the floor, and act like I was having epileptic fits.

By now, everyone knows I do not just sing standing in the middle of the stage. I also dance and get others to dance with me.

Our show is all about energy and all about the skill, so we never have to alter it for different audiences, although maybe we might get crazier at a punk-rock show. With kids moshing and crowd-surfing, we might have to get crazy as well.

As a performer, I want to hit the last row of the arena. I want to make big moves. I'm a spaz, naturally.

I like leaping around on stage as long as it's done with class. None of this jumping up in the air and doing the splits.

You've got to be like a fan at your show, just wild out. I make eye contact. I get in the crowd and kick it with 'em, stage dive, mosh. I make 'em laugh. I go out there and turn up, have fun. There's no set list; I don't have rehearsals.

I take a lot of pride in my live show and put more energy there than I do in the studio.

So many nights I'm up there on stage and I wish everybody out in the audience could see what I see and feel what I feel.

I always felt, as a listener at a show, that when there was too much banter between the artist and the audience that it detracted from the show. I more enjoyed shows where the guys came out and they just played.

I still get thrilled by the energy that is a live performance, the fear and the panic and the electricity that happens on the night. I think jolting myself every once in a while with that fear is a good thing for me.

I'm not classically trained or anything, but I'll rip up a dance floor.

When you're onstage, you're acutely aware of the reaction of a particular group of people, because it's like a wave.

I've worked with lots of musicians - like Tina Turner - and I love when they go in front of the fitting mirror and do their thing, pose, dance. I love that moment!

But I love the hot sweat. I think overheating onstage is invigorating. It's better than being comfortable. I think being comfortable is the death of a show.

It was most exciting when people first came up on the stage and then when they came back for the encore. We wanted to make a show that kept on developing, that was interesting, so we tried to do that with our live shows.

Immediate, simultaneous connection between the audience and a performer is crucial to me. It's why I do what I do. Other things, like recording, are satisfying, but they're not the same. I love the connection I get with the audience when I'm sitting behind that piano.

My live performance, it just comes from feeling an energy and emotion from the crowd.

I'm much more energetic now; you might say live performance is my mission.

The thing that's characteristic of my performance is that I literally do drag the whole studio onto the stage.

Actually, because I'm so small, when I strike an open A chord I get physically thrown to the left, and when I play an open G chord I go right. That's how hard I play, and that's how a lot of my stage act has come about. I just go where the guitar takes me.

When we play live, it's always been a do or die effort. And everything we've ever done has always had that approach.

I can't even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.

I'm a singer-songwriter, but we get loud and we jump around. We have dance moves; we freak out. It's really fun, man!

I'm not the first one to say it, but that time onstage is a heightened sense of present tense.