I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own.
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 never considered myself part of rock 'n' roll. My stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll. Since I couldn't see people dancing, I didn't write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved me. My style requires pure heart singing.
I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.
We were never the cool band to like. They tried to put us into a hair-metal thing, but we weren't really Warrant or Poison. We were always outside the box. I think we had a little niche that nobody had - maybe the funkiness had something to do with it.
I have been playing acoustic music for a very long time, and it's something that I am very comfortable doing, so if I made a record, it would probably be a mixture of that and some other things that I'm interested in.
I'm not a folk-singer. I just sing a certain place.
I don't want to be a lead player. I don't want to shred and play fast licks. I just want to be the best rhythm section ever.
To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.
Of course, Paul McCartney's sound is different from mine, but it's the way you hear things, really.
I think people have been really receptive to understanding that I've grown up and the music's going to sound a little different.
Dad had a way of defining himself. He couldn't put his finger on whether it was rock 'n' roll or country.
I think K-Pop is a type of expression.
Kenny Burrell that's the sound I'm looking for.
Personally more so than shock, I think, rap music has to be born of rebellion.
This week, I'm a gypsy. Maybe next week it'll be glitter rock.
Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn't their parents'. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.
I would not consider myself to be a quote unquote real New York rapper. I don't even like New York rappers.
Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can't stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That's true on record and on stage.
I think people forget even though we were labelled a synth band because of 'The Hurting,' but keyboards are not our native instruments. Roland's a guitar player and I'm a bass player.
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.
I have always been a singer/songwriter, and I was pushed in places I didn't want to do, like pop or top forty. I don't belong there.
From a musical standpoint, I was inspired by '90s hip hop, with a lot of drums and the tempos. I'm always inspired by David Bowie and Prince.
I never consciously tried to conceive of what my sound should be.
