Genuine Artistry Quotes

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

I don't feel comfortable making empty music.

I feel like trying to write a song in order to be a big hit is just not something I'm interested in because it's not going to come from an authentic place of expression.

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

Sheryl Crow. I loved her 'Tuesday Night Music Club.' She expressed her own point of view, and she wasn't trying to be like anyone else, and I loved that. That's been the thinking of all my favorite artists.

I don't have to compete in the charts. I can just be myself as a musician, a songwriter and play with the musicians that I really love.

I always make music that is true to my spirit.

You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.

Anyone who knows music knows that Neil is about as real as it can get, and this along with seeing him perform 'Harvest Moon' on 'SNL' was my first experience knowing what real music really felt like.

I just always make honest music. I just always kinda do what I wanna do.

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.

I'm just excited that I get to put out the music I love versus music just for the sake of it.

Real music to me is real; it's what you feel.

The past is part of the present, is part of the future, it's all part of being an artist. You cannot be something that you're not when you're not that thing anymore, and if you do that then you're a liar.

The best advice I've received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.

If you're making music for all the right reasons, people are going to be receptive to that and appreciate it the same way you did when your were writing it.

The more people do hear my music, they do realize that I'm being true to myself. So there is that conflict, but I think more and more, people are realizing I'm just being me.

I like performers who I know are for real. You can tell, man, there's an intensity about their stuff. You can tell right away they're real people, ya know?

I am very aware now that music is a business, but there is also a way to go about making music that is true to yourself as opposed to doing, you know, just going through the motions and making things that would just be commercially successful.

I think that more and more there's a sense that the best performances I can give are the ones that are the truest to who I am. The further I move away from who I am, the worse they are.

No person writes to win awards.

When you try to put everything into music, there's no room left to try to make you think we're cool. We know you think we're cool.

Before the money or anything, number one, it was just to put out real music, real stuff with a passion, real art.

Don't try to be just like some other singer hitting it big - find your own style and be honest in your performances. And never underestimate your audience.

You know when somebody really knows what they're drawing from and you can feel it when you see the movie.