There is a long and interesting tradition of really marginal left-field music that becomes commercially successful. And I will, for a brief minute, fit into that tradition.
Look, when I started out, mainstream culture was Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course, there's no fitting into it now.
I never wrote music for the mainstream.
This music isn't Top 40, we really stand out from anyone.
As interesting as that music can occasionally be, I don't think it really replaces the other.
I'm a student of Ice Cube and Scarface, which means the stuff I rap about is not radio-friendly, and it's very opinionated. and it's very much from the perspective of a black man in America, and our opinion ain't always popular when we have a political opinion.
I think have my own style; no one has ever tried playback singing before. I might release a punk rock song that perhaps other won't appreciate, but I like doing my own thing. I make music for my own satisfaction, not for money or fame.
Once you free your mind about a concept of music and harmony being correct, you can do whatever you want.
Historically, musicians know what it is like to be outside the norm - walking the high wire without a safety net. Our experience is not so different from those who march to the beat of different drummers.
We're more into expressing ourselves than making radio hits.
I've always loved making independent music.
One of the things I did learn from 'The Epic' was that we don't have to feel so much pressure to conform to set formats. A song doesn't have to be three minutes and 30 seconds.
We made music that wouldn't be in synch.
There's just more emotion and raw feeling in Baltimore music. It can't be copied.
I love truly forward-thinking music, and I'm not even sure I'd describe my work as that, even.
We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard... Everything was 10th-generation Led Zeppelin... Overproduced, or just junk. We missed music like it used to be.
All the big artists I talk to say that they are trapped in a formula and they are looking for the music of tomorrow.
I just always make honest music. I just always kinda do what I wanna do.
I am producing sounds that people are not used to hearing from the harp.
I'm not necessarily a happy singer. That's not who I am as an artist.
When I was growing up, I was always looking for the most willfully uncommercial music: Whether it was Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa or King Crimson, that's what attracted me.
I did Noise Music because I genuinely liked noise... But a lot of people didn't. At my concerts, people smashed beer glasses in my face.
Willie Nelson is the perfect person, it seems to me, to think about. Because something tells me that he operates on his own frequency.
I would say there's a lot of similarity between folk and punk. It's written for the common man.
I like music that's more offensive. I like it to sound like nails on a blackboard, get me wild.
