Doug E. Fresh Quotes

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

I'm not able to go in with an act that I use month to month year to year all the time. It's constantly evolving and changing and that keeps me on my toes but certainly adds to the challenge.

I try new stuff every time I perform. I have steps I do that I know are definite, and stuff I can make up right then and there and then forget.

I became a singer and a songwriter by learning on the spot, so think I always need to be slightly out of my comfort zone when I do something. I've never stopped being experimental because that's how I started.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.

We go in and I do my thing, and then we supplement it with whatever we want.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

This is the rock 'n' roll life, and you had to invent it as you went along. There was no textbook to say how you operate this machinery.

This band makes sure that we have whole sections of stuff that are free form so that they don't know what we are doing next, that is the fun part of playing. You are playing something that you haven't ever played before.

I ad lib. I've gotta bring my own into it.

I try not to do anything by formula.

I've never written lyrics. I get up in front of a microphone, and I just sing what comes to the top of my head.

I think probably with any performer, but maybe with rock music especially, the audience wants to see the singer being real, and exploring, and not doing a rehearsed routine, so I'm just constantly looking for new things to try. I'm really curious out there, and my curiosity has led me into all kinds of bizarre situations.

I like to reinvent with each project, in any which way possible.

When I was coming up, a freestyle wasn't a freestyle unless everything was completely improvised, in-the-moment and right there, and you had to incorporate various elements of what was going on in the room on the day.

I ask all my actors to do two things: I ask them to fail for me, and I ask them to surprise me.

If you just freestyle, everybody is gonna go, 'Freestyle.'

I improvise a lot and try something new every couple of years.

A lot of guys come out, and they do the exact same thing, are in the exact same mood, and have the exact same entrance every night, I really just make up a lot of crap as I go along.

I freestyle everything.

I studied structured improv, where you start from one position and see where it takes you. I like spontaneity. If you set yourself up to do the same thing every night, you may not connect as well to a different audience.

I like to leave a little room to innovate and change things around while I'm working.