Obviously I still gig on my own, but I've always heard my music with a band.
I don't believe in having bands for solo records.
Even when I was coming through school, I was a loner and I used to study music and play it and play it, and I was in bands.
I'm definitely a singer, but I play. I write music too, but it's all coming from the same source. I have never learned an instrument any other way than by myself.
It was really fun. Well, Bobby was just basically a folk singer. He didn't play with any bands or anything, like all the rest of us. Just played his guitar and sang his songs.
I have always thought it was important to maintain some connection for myself to what it takes to make a song work by myself, to put a song across to an audience by myself.
I've always loved playing solo. I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music. My favorite thing is usually whatever I'm doing right there and then.
I'm not generally a big solo guy, because I'm not into showing off that way.
Actually touring solo is a little more difficult. It's more demanding than being under the "wing" of the band, no pun intended. It's more intimidating to sing in front of smaller crowds. The buck stops with me.
Today a record producer is even more involved and is often the production's sole musician, one person playing all the instruments one-by-one.
I'm a one-man band!
It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.
For me, I work very self-contained. It's literally just me sitting in a room doing it until the very end of the process when other musicians come in and instruments are recorded.
Tonight I just need my guitar.
When I write, I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert.
Some musicians make and record music; other musicians play in a band... I just make and record music, and I don't feel a part of anything in any music business.
Making music is so much more self-motivated. It's my own music. It's my own time. I don't have a team around me that's helped me make everything.
I'd say it's harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you. After all these years, I still get nervous in front of people. I can't help it.
The greatest benefit of being a solo performer is that it is seriously frightening, but at the same time very empowering. It's just you and the audience. All the weight is on you to deliver the songs.
I just became accustomed to being all the members of the band. That was something that was really exciting to me.
I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.
And I've always loved playing solo.
