David Bryan Quotes

When it comes to being in a band or going solo, one is collaborative, and one is not. But generally speaking, when going solo, I am the boss. People can contribute ideas, but I am the boss. When collaborating, you make compromises and look for a common ground.

When we came into the studio I became more and more me, making the tracks and choosing the musicians, partly because a great deal of the time during Bridge, Artie wasn't there.

I don't control it at all. It's all up to the musicians in the group. They control it. They make all the cues, and they tell me what they want, and then I act like a mirroring device so that everyone can see what the cues are.

In Mudcrutch we all wrote songs, and when it got to the focus on Tom and the Heartbreakers, I kept writing songs, but it wasn't anything that was up the Heartbreakers tree, I didn't think - and I don't think they did, either. So I kept writing songs for the hell of it, but I didn't want to make a record just for the sake of making a record.

It's not really that I didn't want to perform at all. What I didn't want to do was try to put together a band, rehearse, on my own. You know what I mean?

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.

Only one of us would usually sing lead. Which most of the time was, Mickey or Dave. They thought it was perfectly a natural routine, because Mickey and Dave saw themselves as TV actors.

When you're in a band with three writers, three great writers, you only get one third of the writer thing. So that's the whole reason that I did a solo career. And that's, you know, when I told Fleetwood Mac I was going to do that, they were of course terrified that I would do that record and then that I would quit.

I'll come in with a string of riffs and direct the musical ideas. But you still need a band and their input to make the ideas come alive. You can't underestimate band chemistry.

The best thing about this band is I'm the leader!

When I'm sick of myself, and when I don't know what to say as a solo artist, I can write a song for a movie. When I don't know where to turn musically, being in a band - Rilo Kiley or Jenny & Johnny - the collaborative nature is really exciting.

Luckily, I'm in a band with two other guys who really pull their own weight and have the skills and abilities to compensate for my weaknesses.

With Dream Theater, every creative aspect of the group went through me. I oversaw it all from top to bottom.

Being in a band, you become each other's best friends as well as each other's worst enemies.

With all the different guys in the band and all the different ideas of what's what, it's hard to get everybody on the same page sometimes. We are a very tight brotherhood, but we never know what we're going to do.

George felt the group wasn't giving him the freedom he needed to develop his songwriting. But I have to admit the end came a little sooner than I expected.

With Alkaline Trio, we are who we are. We never really feel too confined, but when we get together, there is an Alkaline Trio sound, and when I go off and do something on my own, there is an element of freedom that I don't have with the Trio.

That's something I like about drag - I get to do everything. Collaborative arts are hard for me because I don't really like to relinquish control.

We kind of established in Sons of Apollo right from the get go that it would be a very collaborative process musically, but after that, I was going to take the reins and control everything else beyond that the way I did with Dream Theater.

I don't think you can reach the same highs working in a band as you can on your own.

Paul forced the Beatles to work a lot harder than they would have otherwise, and he did the same thing with Wings.

It's easier to collaborate with instrumentalists than singers; they know exactly the sound that I need.

You write a song; you know what you want it to sound like. With a band like ours, it's more about the collective. It's important everyone feels expressed and represented.

I always communicate musically. I want my band not only to learn the form and feel of the song by ear, like I do, but also have the freedom to contribute.

You've got to be able to compromise in a band; otherwise, somebody's more important than the next guy, and that's never been the case in Priest.