Whether you're with a group of people, whether you're playing music or whether you're by yourself, even if it's written material, you have to be listening.
I've found that writing and playing music has so little to do with will, and so much to do with just finding what's there waiting for you.
I feel vulnerable when my ego is threatened - if I get jealous of another band's good time slot at a big festival, if I'm about to get clobbered in a political debate, if I'm trying to impress someone I have a crush on. It's the opposite of openness, letting go, allowing deep feelings to express themselves. For me, that comes from playing music and from kissing.
With all of the people in the world and all of the suffering and all of the things that people are forced to do for lack of other alternative, the fact that I had a subsidized education and got to go right into a life of playing music for a living, what a stupidly fortunate place to be.
I started playing music when I was 18. My heart was just broken so badly that I decided that I really wanted to start playing music. It felt like the only thing that I could do in response to that. And I've been playing ever since.
If I'm playing music in front of people, I'll lose days to nerves like really wasted days of just like being terrified. And then when I get out there, generally speaking, I enjoy it very much. But it seems to be I have to accept the fact that that's just part of the deal for me. And I can't just run on and do it.
I think by the time I finished college I was calling myself a professional because I was, you know. I was making a living playing music.
I dropped out of college, started playing music. I was going to do what I was going to do and it is what it is.
Knowing that I am out here, with a full open heart, travelling and living my dream with my guys playing music, that allows me to come home and be a better man, a better dad, knowing that I am fulfilling what I have always wanted to do.
It's all about the music. For me, that's truly what I live for. Just music constantly. Always listening to, writing, or playing music. That's definitely me.
I see a lot of parents now who are really supporting their kids playing music.
After I found out that I was playing music and that I'd have to learn how to read and write music, I started doing that about two years later. Finally, I said, "Oh, that means what I really want to do is to be a composer." But when I was coming up in Texas, there was segregation. There was no schools to go to. I taught myself how to read and how to start writing.
I really love playing music with other people. It's more fun to be on the road with others. It's kind of lonely out there when you play on your own!
I have realised how exciting and easy it is to be a time traveller by looking at paintings and films and architecture and playing music or listening to it. I don't think you necessarily have to live in the present all the time.
Without (my wife) Laurie, I would never be here right now, I know that. I would either be in a coffin, or stashed away doing a life sentence some place. Or running and hiding some place, if I was still alive. I'm certain I wouldn't be playing music. She's just been perfect for me. And she's a protector also; she protects me from myself, from temptations, and bad associations. She's constantly shielding me from walking the red hot coals of existing as a game.
Mom did not want me to have anything to do with playing music. Being from a middle-class Black family in that particular era, everybody wanted you to have a profession -- a doctor, a lawyer, and so forth. So she sent me to school to study medicine.
I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music.
Music wasn't forced on me [in my childhood]. It was something I wanted to do. And ever since, I've never stopped, I've never stopped playing music.
I call it 'new forms'. When you're starting out, they ask you to do four or five minute sets, but once you're a headliner, you do like 90 minutes. I try to think of different things to divvy up the show, like doing drawings, playing music... I gotta carry the show, that's the problem.
I was so happy and content with in life playing music. Music was always my first job and my day gig was my second job.
I rebelled against the Mormon Church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys.
I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but I just always knew that my career would be playing music.
I'd been performing in bands since I was 12 which represented, at that point, about 16 years of playing music.
My passion is for playing music and although everyone needs a break sometimes just to keep things interesting and fresh, there's no way I would ever give that up.
I was 35 years old and not in the best of shape. I spent many late nights playing music, drinking beer, and eating Taco Bell.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: