Trombone Shorty Quotes

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

One of the things that's influenced me musically was my experience at Brown University. I was surrounded by musicians that I really admired, and felt challenged to come up with music, lyrics, and recordings that stood up to the expectations of those musicians and myself.

When you can hear a violinist, that is better than you, then you learn from him, because if you play with somebody who is worse than you, then you go down.

I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.

I was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about.

I wouldn't be one-third of the player I am today if it wasn't for Avenged. They're an inspiring group of guys, and I'm constantly challenged to write things beyond my ability and then figure out how to play them.

I had the chance to play with Benny 'The King' Carter here in Copenhagen for three days in the Montmartre, and two days in Paris. 'What a Thrill.' He knows so much music, and he is the only person that I get the shakes trying to play my horn behind or with him (smile). However, it was a ball.

I didn't think of myself as a lead player, especially when we did live shows, because me and Keith used to switch around all the time. He'd take a lead, I'd play rhythm. Sometimes even within one song. It wasn't strict and regimented.

Now, when we first started, I would be playing something good and then feel like I wasn't doing the right thing and launch into some idiotic cliche. Luckily for me, Bobby was patient.

Over the years, I played with a couple of spectacular guitar players, and playing with them has made me play better than I knew how to play. I hope the same thing is true with acting.

Until you learn to play what you want to hear, you're barking up the wrong tree.

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.

At the upper echelon of musicians in general, I guess performers in general, you have to have this kind of live-or-die, cutthroat mentality.

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

In so many ways, it feels the same now when I play as the very first time I picked up the instrument. There's always this sound out there that's just a little bit beyond my reach and I'm trying to get there and that just sort of keeps me going.

There's art in rhythm playing. Just find it. Make your own art. Find your place, and when it's your time to solo, it's your time to shine.

I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.

When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes. It comes down to people's personalities and individual energies.

A lot of the way I sing is playing off other musicians. It's what I love to do the most.

Taking a solo on a tune is always a little bit scary.

I don't find imitating other people's music easy at all. I remember being fifth in line for a Rolling Stones tour, early '90s, when Bill Wyman left, and I was hoping against hope that I wouldn't get the call to audition. I wouldn't be able to play a Stones song if you put a gun to my head.

The best way for me to teach myself an instrument is to just jam on it, and sound awful sometimes, and sound great other times.

We're not complete prodigies musically and as a band together it takes more and more work to find something new and special.

With my first high school band ever, we would have these breaks in the song for idiotic solos, solos that were un-tasteful and would be shredding, but I needed to put them in there, and I realize now it's because we were playing shows with a whole bunch of bands that were all male.

The music has a better feeling when you're responding to what's going on. Music is like playing handball, playing catch with someone, not playing golf. Everywhere the ball bounces is where you respond to it.