Stevie Ray Vaughan Quotes

I tried writing this book about a singer in a wedding band, but realized I only wanted to write the book so I could have an excuse to sing with a wedding band as research. That's not a good enough reason to write a book.

When you're a producer and an artist you're very critical of yourself. I like to produce other people, but I'm not that good at producing myself.

If you're only making an album every 10 years, it better be good.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.

There were periods when I sometimes made fires in a large, open fireplace that lasted about two weeks, which was how long it took to burn my compositions. So there has been an awful lot that I have destroyed.

My whole goal is to make good records and keep myself inspired and able to accomplish what I need to accomplish.

One of the most important things for me in terms of my working method is doubt. I get very insecure about my ideas. And I don't say 'insecure' in kind of a paranoid way. I mean just: 'Are they good enough?' 'Is this the right thing to do?' I really beat myself up over that.

Yeah, man I am going to be writing a book soon. The reality of being in a rock band in the music business'.

The music business is not a good place for people who don't know things.

One of the best things about Kickstarter and crowdfunding and the collapse of the music business is a lot of artists like me have been forced to face our own weird mess about ourselves and what we thought it meant to become musicians.

All good poetry is forged slowly and patiently, link by link, with sweat and blood and tears.

I think we could have done a lot more great music, so I was disappointed that we didn't continue making records and touring, but it's hard to argue with 10 good years.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.

There isn't a dearth of it, but I will confess that it's harder for me to find songs on which I'm willing to invest anything from ten to fifteen hours writing an arrangement than it was in times past.

You're hot for two seconds, and you're struggling to get work again. If it were easy, I don't think that's a good place for an artist to work from.

I feel like everything I do in the hip-hop world has an influence. People don't really notice what I did until somebody else does it. As far as hip-hop goes, I want to continue to make good music, and good art. I don't really follow the state of hip-hop.

When we made that album with Gary Moore, I was still kind of searching for the right direction for myself. Although the music is quite good the direction was like a box of fireworks that caught light all at the same time.

I'm not very prolific. I'm not good at sitting down as an artist and saying 'Okay, I need to put in my four hours today.'

I grew up with another pretty darn good writer: Glenn Frey of the Eagles. We were very good friends, and we kind of studied it together.

The idea that every time you do a film you're supposed to be tortured confuses me. I mean, guys who say, 'Oh, it's really tough, my character is really suffering' -come on. For us, even in the rotten ones we've had a good time. I don't think you have to suffer.

People think because I've got some success, I've made it, but in my eyes it's like, 'How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?' Not that I'm trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

The great thing about a painter is that he or she lives on - I mean, Andrew Wyeth is more in his paintings than he was walking around.

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.