Tom Morello Quotes

My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.

I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or, 'What you're doing isn't jazz,' are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly.

The first time I arrived in Hollywood for the Grammy Awards, I thought I'd bump into people who mattered, such as Ry Cooder or Randy Newman. I was disappointed to see the people I'd always thought of as pop stars. They would charge around the stage rather than enjoy the music.

I listen to all kinds of music and sometimes I try to do something that's referential to an era or a genre, but it still sounds like me.

We didn't want to change who we are. We're not going to sit there and go, 'Let's be a rap band now.'

I don't just sing R&B: I'm able to sing pop and play with other sounds, but it's all real soulful.

I picked up the guitar when I was 4, and from then, I could never be bored.

The only advice I can give is to absorb as much as you can from as wide a spectrum as you can. If you're in a rock band and only soak up Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple kind of beginnings, then you're not going to have much leeway.

I'm a proud mainstream musician, but having said that, I do firmly believe there's more to musical talent in India than just Bollywood.

We spent a couple of years trying to be what we thought people wanted us to be, what the press thought we should be, doing what the company wanted. Finally we just said 'Sod it. This is what we do best. We're best at making pop records that people enjoy and having fun and entertaining them.'

Our music's got flavor; it's got skill. And we present it really well.

That's what I wanted to do was play music.

I'm suspicious of the idea of categories in music and this idea of things being in boxes. To me, that seems unnatural. I write the music that somebody with my biography would write, and the thing that's always driven me is an enthusiasm for the material. I sort of follow the notes to where they want to go.

It's neat to hear a new generation of musicians come up.

I've been making music for so long, and the main hurdles I've run when dealing with any public exposure is that many of my projects are so different from each other.

After I left Dream Theater, and I was doing Avenged Sevenfold, Twisted Sister... all these other things, I made a lot of new fans in a lot of new areas.

Motley never once sat down and said, 'Well, the music scene's changing. We need to make this record a little darker or heavier musically or lyrically.' It was just four guys sitting in a room like a bunch of 16-year-olds in a garage and jamming on riffs.

It's incredible how much beauty exists in the world of music and how many artists you can really inspire with your own work.

You know, I am very versatile in music.

I love pop music, but at the same time, I'm seeking to write whatever I'm organically inclined to.

Oh my God, Guns N' Roses - it's like, jeez, that's what made me move out to Los Angeles. 'Welcome to the Jungle,' you know - it's been a huge inspiration for me.

When I came to Mumbai, I realised an individual should be versatile, and in playback singing you have different genres where you can explore yourself.

That's kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock 'n' roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin' through.

I can't make hard street music for the rest of my life. Your references change.

That was something we were trying to figure out: Are we allowed to do a jazz song? Are we allowed to do cabaret? Just from hearing the Beatles, it was like, 'Well, they did it. It's okay to write something other than a standard rock song.'