I do have very solid reggae roots based on the fact that I'm Jamaican, and so that is a part of myself; even if I never do all reggae, it has to come out in some way because that's who I am.
I've always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn't have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.
Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else. It is hard in this day and age.
I don't feel like we have that Paul McCartney gene, and I think the cool thing about us is that we know it.
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.
Following the example of Bruce Springsteen or Bob Seger, I wanted to have a band, a sound and a personality, yet maintain a singular position of being able to control and motivate the flow of things.
I can't tell you what genre Maroon 5 is in. I don't know if they're rock or pop or alternative. I don't know what they are. I have a hard time separating that stuff. I just know what I like when I hear it.
I'm not a folk-singer. I just sing a certain place.
I think my music is experimental, playful, challenging, focused, fun. I don't want it to be thought of as trying to appeal to a certain type of person or being very cerebral.
You get a lot of who you are as a musician across through the music you write. If you're writing your own music, then it's important to be really honest.
At 16 I was living in the Congo, and, you know, it's your teenage time. I really wanted to find a way to express myself, so I started to write songs in the Congo, and I think that's why my music is quite open, with a lot of different influences.
You can't do gospel and rap. Either you're of the gospel music, or you're a rapper. You can't put the two together. You can, but is it right? It's questionable.
After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.
I was never much of a singer. I was terrible. It's embarrassing: I was trying to sound like everybody else. I went through a big Cure phase, so I was trying to do that kind of dramatic voice.
Being a musician, it's my job to be real and be true to whoever I am. Hopefully that will inspire other people. I hope it inspires people to be themselves and be comfortable in your own skin.
I know what my sound is. I'm just trying to get it out there how I can explain it. I'm not trying to write or put out some music that doesn't represent me.
My parents were not musical, and they were not effervescent people; everything was very quiet. The music that I played was loud; it used to drive them up the wall. My father died, and that was a tragedy for everybody, but suddenly I didn't have anybody to stop me from doing what I wanted to do.
Steve Vai had a unique style of playing. Steve Vai didn't sound like anyone else: Steve Vai sounded like Steve Vai.
I'm somebody who listens to a lot of funk, a lot of James Brown, and I want to be somebody who contributes all that energy to the mainstream.
Artistic development made me who I am. Somebody took the time to help me find what it is that works for me as an entertainer and who I am as a music maker.
There's kind of a cool feel that happens every now and then. I guess that feel is the thing that makes the score its own score. But, I don't know exactly what that is. So, it's hard for me to answer that question.
Jazz was always cool. That was what I liked about jazz - it was always cool. Now I see the cats that were basically cool getting kind of uncool. So that ruins what I feel about jazz.
At first, I found the music I was making really hard to find a home for. I felt like my attitude was really British, but not the actual sounds I was making. Back in 2003, when I made 'Galang,' there were no clubs that had an 'anything and everything' attitude.
Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.
