Chris Martin Quotes

I am most proud that I stayed true to the music of my soul.

Any band that is out there chasing it is doing more destruction to music then someone who is out there playing what they truly feel.

I try to make my music interesting to me first, then hopefully other people will find it interesting, too.

Music's supposed to come from the heart. I felt like that if it ever got mechanical, I was going to back away from it.

That's what rock music is, I think - constantly searching for authenticity, and being as honest as possible.

As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck.

It's not like if I play in big places I won't be happy. But I don't want to start adapting to what's in style to make my music. I want to stay true to my roots, to keep making the music I love, that comes from my soul. And if there are people who want to listen to it, I'm happy.

If it doesn't come from your heart, music just doesn't work.

I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity. You can feel when something's authentic, and you can feel when it's not: you know when someone's trying to make the club record, or trying to make the girl record, or trying to make the thug record. It's none of that. It's just my emotions.

If you pretend to be somebody that you're not when you write songs - and I did that on some of the early Styx albums - nobody cares about what you have to say.

I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write.

I just want to make great music. There's not a genre that I would categorize it as, but I want it to be true and authentic.

I tend to write a lot of love songs, but I always want there to be something real and authentic that people can connect to, and I want to not just do it in a stereotypical way.

My idols are singers like Billie Holiday and Erykah Badu because there's no gloss on what they do.

People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I'm not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.

I always try to write about something that's actually happened or it doesn't always have to have happened to me, but it has to have happened at some point. So every single lyric that you hear comes from some kind of story that I've come across in my life. I like to think that that maybe helps me mean it a bit more and if you don't mean it, it ceases to be soul music.

Always focus on the music first. That's the big thing. Staying true to making good music and not sacrificing that for anything.

I don't really like the idea of putting myself in any category now... I think that people are looking for music that's real and honest and that they can relate to emotionally.

I felt like a failure for so long because I wasn't able to access myself in the way I knew I would have if I was going to make music that mattered. I knew I was going to have to learn how to be honest.

If you try to make music and try to convey to everyone that everything is all peachy-keen, you might come off like you're full of it, and that could be something that draws listeners away.

It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.'

I just make music from my soul and let it be.

It would get really alienating, to have my face be the face of a cause. So much just comes down to the songs. I just want to give us the opportunity to write great songs. Even our work in Haiti is limited by how good our songs are. We just need to get rid of as much of the bullshit as possible, so we can have a life, so we have something to write about.

You can only make art that talks to the masses when you have nothing to say to them.

But I never want to get to the point where I write a safe song or one that represents my sense of a subject in order to appear civilized.