I mostly listen to things that are so different because there's something so intriguing about trying to understand where someone is coming from.
The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.
When you start reading a piece together, you get a sense of someone's basic philosophy of music without saying a word. You realize the other person's approach, how they express themselves, the kind of restraint they show, all those things.
I've never taken vocal lessons. My early trumpet training and a fortunate talent for singing has always been enough for me. In the case of rock singing, I've always felt it was better to remain a bit untrained to maintain your individuality.
Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It's like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.
New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.
I've been making music since age five.
The band that changed my life was The Who. It's hard to pick just one album, but if I had to pick the one that really showed me how things could be done, it's 'The Who Sell Out.' They really went to town on that, doing something that no one had ever done before.
I don't feel like we have that Paul McCartney gene, and I think the cool thing about us is that we know it.
At 14, I was in my own little classic rock country band. Then, after high school, I started another band called Northern Comfort. That was based out of Chico, Calif.
People like Prince don't have to care about anything, but they care because they want music for the future to be great.
From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony.
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.
I got a guitar when I was six and, instead of learning other people's songs, started to try to write my own, even at that young age.
We had a bunch of instruments around the house. Like, I played different instruments, trumpet, bass, drums, piano, all that, but whatever I could get my hands on.
I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be.
Only after coming to Chennai did I come to know that I know nothing about music. People in Chennai are so talented in Carnatic, ghazals, etc. They can play Piano, etc so well.
Prince, Bootsy Collins, Earth Wind & Fire and Parliament all had albums that sound different. I wanted to show, as a hip-hop producer, I'm one of those that can do anything, because I was raised on so much music aside from rap and hip-hop.
A couple of days working with Joe Jonas, I thought, 'This guy is a slayer of a singer; he's really funny, goofy, and sexy. We need to write that.' And that led to 'Cake By The Ocean.'
I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.
I'm not really allowed to talk about the Dead though. I think when we are at our best, we definitely do things that the Dead or no other band could do. We explore things and take things to the extreme.
When we were starting out as a band in New York, we played a concert at a small club early on and asked Lady Gaga to open for us. We were big fans, and she had the same kind of approach to music as we did: not taking everything so seriously and just having fun.
I was 15 when I started making music properly.
I wanted to play drums and if I didn't play drums, I wouldn't make music and drums are the foundation for what I do.
Being used to scientific terminology and theory it was always natural for me to push this stuff into songs.
