Gerald Clayton Quotes

I came to town thinking that everybody had the same idea of what country music was that I did.

It can be a bit frustrating to always get the soft-rock stamp.

I don't think a song should be put in a category.

All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don't subscribe to any of that. It's all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the '70s sounds nothing like the stuff from the '80s, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the '90s. Who's to say what is and isn't a certain type of music?

The beauty of music is that everyone hears it their own way, and every song you hear leaves an impression on you that alters the way you hear everything from that point on.

I think everybody has to kind of decide what the word 'jazz' means to them, and that's fine.

I tend to not want to put labels or categories on the music, only because people come with preconceived ideas about what they're going to hear, or won't come for this reason.

A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

And to me, I had come out of Texas, and during that time was when I realized that a lot of people in Nashville, their idea of what country music was was not the same as mine.

I think it's really hard to describe music without alienating somebody.

I don't like to classify my own tracks as a genre.

I think what people call genre is just a question of orchestration. So, for instance, with Punch Brothers, you look at that band and say that's a bluegrass band, when really it's an orchestration choice.

The problem we have is that, some people call it 'too rock' to play on a jazz station, and it's 'too jazz' to play on a rock station. So it's difficult. It's difficult to make it playing this kind of music.

After talking to people and meeting them every day, I realize that a song can be written from one perspective with an objective in mind. What is crazy about it is that many different people can take one song a totally different way. That is so cool, since music is a universal thing and a very personal thing.

People lump us into the nu-metal category, and there might be a hint of that stuff, but if you really listen to a nu-metal band and then listen to Slipknot, it's so apples and oranges that it's retarded.

Funk could very easily be called jazz, but you call it funk. Does that really matter? People dig that they associate themselves with certain genres, but the genres to me are made up things, like an imaginary world.

My perception is that there is no distinction in music as many people perceive. The difference lies in the way you hear the music.

The more country that my music gets, the less it fits into the country world today. It's almost like there needs to be two genres, modern country and... country?

Every one interprets everything in terms of his own experience. If you say anything which does not touch a precisely similar spot in another man's brain, he either misunderstands you, or doesn't understand you at all.

When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.

You put music in categories because you need to define a sound, but when you don't play it on your so-called radio stations that claim to be R&B or jazz or whatever... All music is dance music. But when people think of dance music, they think of techno or just house. Anything you can dance to is dance music. I don't care if it's classical, funk, salsa, reggae, calypso; it's all dance music.

Experience is stronger than belief. Once we have experiences our mind begins to open. This works better than me forcing my own experience or knowledge onto anyone. Show them how to have their own experiences.

If a piece of music is under three minutes long, it's rock. Over three minutes, it's classical.

Life … is a bit like reading. … If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon by a professional critic, then what point is there to your reading? Only that it’s yours. Similarly, why live your life? Because it’s yours. But what if such an answer becomes less and less convincing?

No matter what genre of music you play when you rack up a couple years of experience, you have your own point of view no matter who it is that is coming in front of you whether it's a pop artist or a country artist. Whoever.