Ricky Skaggs Quotes

I happened to come along in the music business when there was no trend.

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.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

You make music to change the radio, not make music for the radio.

You know the question: 'How do you get to Carnegie Hall?' Answer: 'Practise?' Well, in my case, I got there by not practising. I didn't finish my music degree. And when I got into the pop world, I decided not to conform because I figured that the point of being an artist was that you shouldn't be like anyone else.

Nashville has a formula, and it works a lot of the time, but it wasn't right for me. They're afraid to step outside the box - even though, with me, my success came because I was outside of the box to begin with.

Everybody told me that if I insisted on doing rockabilly music, I'd never have a chance of selling any records. In fact, I lost count of how many people told me to ditch it all together, in favour, I guess, of sounding like everybody else.

There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.

I've realised that if I aim for a successful record, I probably won't have any success. But if I keep making weird things, then hopefully the audiences will come to us.

After 'Mosaic,' I think a lot of people didn't know what my next record was going to be. And that's what I love. I just love doing music because I'm not going to follow the patterns and formulas of Music Row.

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.

You may confuse a lot of people when going against the grain of conventional thinking, and that's perfectly okay. As an entrepreneur, standing up for your vision to your family and friends might possibly be the best practice you will get for the life that awaits you.

I've never conformed to what my record label has said and, yes, that has meant that it's been a long journey for me.

I am surely happy to be breaking away from the norm when it comes to my songs.

I like to try and be outside of the box or do things that other people aren't doing.

My philosophy through all my work, be it on canvas or on the street, is about pushing boundaries and not going with the flow because everyone else is doing something a certain way.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

I try to please people, to give them a good time, but I refuse to make my act conform to traditional show-biz standards of entertainment. There's a little voice that says, 'Oh, no, you can't do that, that's breaking all the rules.' That's the voice of show business. Then this other little voice says, 'Try it.' And most of the time, when the voice comes on and says, 'No,' that's the time it works.

All art is based on non-conformity.

You don't base records on success; you base it on creativity.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.

Every film has to be the next something else; originality isn't celebrated because you can't market it.

The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

I like to make the music that I really love. You're supposed to make your favorite music that no one else played, and I'd like to just keep it at that and not really change it at all.