Josh Homme Quotes

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

You have to react to what's around you in the moment, whatever the music is. Just think of it as some place you have to enter and you need to find the key.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I was curious and hungry at a young age, and jazz was such a mystery to me, an ocean where you can express yourself in the moment. It represented freedom, it represented wearing wings and going somewhere with music.

Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

Jazz is a state of mind. There's no boundaries.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear. There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law.

I don't always have to be on what is the newest in music is. I'm slowly educating myself in music. For me, I feel more free in not knowing everything in what I'm doing. You can start making up too many rules for yourself. It should just be love and fun and feeling good.

I used to look at composing music as problem solving. But as I get older, it's not about problem solving anymore. There are no solutions, because there are no problems. You just turn the tap and it flows out.

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

I love to improvise when it's appropriate and encouraged by a producer.

There were no rules, other than that the song should sound good and be fun to play.

Music is the only thing I've ever known that doesn't have any rules at all.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

I don't know, my music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I'm at during a particular moment in time.

This band makes sure that we have whole sections of stuff that are free form so that they don't know what we are doing next, that is the fun part of playing. You are playing something that you haven't ever played before.

I look at my clarinet sometimes and I think, I wonder what's going to come out of there tonight? You never know.

Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way.

We have no general conceptual thrust for the band, other than trying to make music that keeps our interest. When things are novel, they are probably things we have discovered by accident or investigation rather than by design.

I guess, like, the whole thing with music is - you're a little bit in control but not fully in control. Which is kind of the fun of it.

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.