Jon Batiste Quotes

The Midwest is a musical melting pot and the source and birthplace of several musical genres.

So, maybe you don't see blues so much in Styx's music but it is definitely part of Tommy's early music.

We're a gumbo of American music, and aren't ashamed to play pop or soul or rock because we all grew up on radio.

Although my music is electronic, it has a lot of influences from my past, which is all sorts of genres; I've been in a rock-metal band for a long time, and I still feel like, personally, I have a lot of influence from that. My classical influence, you can find spots here and there.

My whole life, I've always had one foot in the classical world and one foot in the rock, pop, and folk world.

I grew up partially with classical music but listened to a lot of rock when I was young - I like acoustic, and folk from Mali and Armenia and Turkey.

I stick to playing Brahms, but I love listening to Led Zeppelin, and I've also been a big fan of Earth Wind and Fire since the Seventies and of The Gap Band since the Eighties.

I'd like to get something together - like a Handel, Bach, Muddy waters, flamenco type of thing. If I could get that sound, I'd be happy

Don't get me wrong, The Beatles are one of our all-time favourite bands, but there's a lot more we were influenced by.

I was brought up on music hall, and at the same time, I was studying Greek at the age of 12.

We all like all of that, from 'Rubber Soul' to 'The White Album' and all of that, but even before, we were into that theatrical element of things. We didn't want to do a 'Sgt. Pepper's' thing.

You can put the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the same category, but the types of music, the colors each band evokes, are completely different. It's the same with Mozart and Beethoven - they express two very different aspects of music.

I think my parents are the first influence on me music-wise. My dad was into Motown and soul, and my mom was into British '80s pop, like The Trashcan Sinatras. I grew up on that. It was great. They were the first people to really bring music into my life.

My thing has always been that the clothing we make is kind of like music. There are always critics that don't understand that young people can be into Bob Dylan but also into the Wu-Tang Clan and Coltrane and Social Distortion.

There are a lot of country artists now that are heavily influenced by hip-hop. That's not me. I was very heavily influenced by rock & roll.

The Beatles are the classical music of rock n' roll. And rock n' roll is far more widespread than classical will ever be.

There are all kind of corners of the musical world that are deeply influenced by the Dead that one wouldn't expect. Lee Ranaldo is a crazy Deadhead.

I grew up with all different genres of music, and I want to include that in my production as well.

We soaked up everything from Beethoven to Chopin to Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

I've only written 30 songs or something. Dylan's written over 500 songs. There's no comparison. He's the Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll and popular music.

I don't know if it's because I grew up in Beverly or my friends, but I listened to a lot of alternative rock music. I loved Incubus, Weezer and Jimmy Eat World. It almost felt segregated because I loved all of those acts over here, but then I also loved R&B and soul music I grew up with.

I'm trained in classical music, and my favourites have always been rock n' roll and blues, but I've grown up with different kinds of music around me because of my parents.

I feel like we're very lucky in the sense that Dawes can be the kind of band that plays with Bright Eyes or M. Ward but that also plays with Bob Dylan.

We've incorporated different sounds from different countries and genres, and we've explored widening the range of our music.

Heavy metal is not usually my thing. But I love everything. I love good music, period.