All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For too long, musicians have been the greatest enemy of music. Their lack of desire to proselytize is a kind of betrayal.
The world is full of musicians who can play great, and you wouldn't cross the road to see them. It's people who have this indefinable attitude that are the good ones.
A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.
Obviously, fans are the beginning and end for any artist. The minute your fans embrace you and accept you, you begin this ride of being in music and having a career doing something you love. You get to go be a kid and live out your dreams by performing music for fans who come out to your shows.
The public is usually slow to catch on to new things, and it's important that musicians stick to their guns and not look for that instant gratification.
You always feel like rock critics are frustrated musicians. I envy musicians their ability to live their art and share it with an audience, in the moment.
Who you are as a performer is one thing, but when you're making records, you're dealing with musicians' tastes, their goals, their wants, their needs, everyone's individual pride.
My songs are the reflection of how I think and how I feel in that moment. But I'm conscious of the fact that artists have a responsibility before the masses and they have to take care with their words.
Most of my arguments with musicians through the years have had more to do with their attitude about music, or their attitude about their own lives, or their personal responsibility. Music has never really been the big centerpiece of the fight.
Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like.