Adam Granduciel Quotes

When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards.

With Zeppelin, I tried to play something different every night in my solos. I'd play for 20 minutes but the longest ever was 30 minutes. It's a long time, but whenI was playing it seemed to fly by.

With human beings it could be argued that all music-making is, in essence, grounded in improvisation.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

When I'm performing music, it's like I'm doing a big improv.

I didn't know how to play lead guitar. There was a freedom in not knowing how to do it.

You have to react to what's around you in the moment, whatever the music is. Just think of it as some place you have to enter and you need to find the key.

When you're playing the same dirty dozen night after night, the moments that keep it fresh are those when you just let go and trust everyone.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

When I play a solo I'm just expressing that moment. It can go horribly wrong easily enough.

We really never know what we're gonna play when we get on stage.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

Sometimes I think that I want to do something strictly basic, really simple. Just with a few chords. But I won't have anything more than two or three sentences in my head. That kind of evaporates once I start playing and then it goes off in whatever direction.

The rule is to try and never play the same thing twice when you have the freedom to do that in the song.

I've found that as I've learned to improvise melodically, it seems like I can come up with a bigger variety of stuff. I kind of selfishly enjoy it more, because I'm in the moment so much.

My records are one thing. My live performances are something totally different because they're very improvised performances.

Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.

The musicians in the band, and myself as a performer, love the risks of the unpredictable and the feeling of jumping off cliffs musically.

All of my solos were improvised initially - I would go in and get my bearings and see what I came up with.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

Improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing. That's a kind of paradoxical thing about improvising.

There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.