Artist Humility Quotes

It is such a crazy idea that maybe something that I wrote or something that I put on a record would affect people at all.

Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.

I have a hard time with musicians who act like pricks because it just makes me mad. I just sit there and I go, 'You know what, dude, no matter whether you're in a band just surviving or you're in a bus playing stadiums, one way or another, you're still among the rare breed of people that are actually getting paid to do it.'

Yeah, we might have a video on 'TRL,' but when you go to the Warped Tour you're going to see us walking around in the crowd and hanging out with kids because we treat our fans like we wanted to be treated when we were going to shows.

Live records of mine are very painful to listen to because you always think you can do it better. I don't think I have a single favorite one.

I'm not deluded enough to think that everyone who knows my name is a listener. You know, I hope that part of that interest - part of that public interest - has to do with me still making records that people like.

I do pinch myself, like when shows in non-English speaking countries are sold out, and people are singing my lyrics. I don't think I'll ever lose that; I'm always appreciative every day of the support I have as an artist, because I'm not a commercial artist.

When I'm making songs, I never call them hits. I knew 'Bandz A Make Her Dance' was a good record, but I never knew it was gonna be a hit.

You know, I've always said, I've never felt I was a particularly good singer, but I've always thought I had a great knack for picking hit songs.

Bruce Springsteen's a rock star. Elton John is a rock star. I'm a folk musician. Honestly, I think that's true.

Sometimes, you release an album and the record company just about ignores it, and so many people don't even know it's out. And I'm not about to jump up and down shouting, "Hey folks, look at me! I'm cool and groovy!" That's not what George Harrison is all about.

There are things that I am very proud of and there are things that you are not so proud of. But I think that applies to any musician.

When you have these moments where a song connects with people and creates a conversation, it's quite a humbling experience because it's like, 'Maybe there is a little bit more weight to this job than I thought there ever was before.' Which was wonderful that that happened with 'Dead Boys.'

I wouldn't trade what Coldplay have achieved for any of my songs.

I never sought out a record deal. It caught me with my pants down. I was just a musician doing my thing, I didn't even send my records out.

People have said I played some pretty amazing gigs in the seventies, but in all honesty, I probably played one good show in three.

A lot of my die-hard fans think I have a lot of hits, but I don't.

I have to be really careful, because I have nothing but love for this entity known as "the customer" in entertainment. I would never, ever, ever put myself above them and say, "They don't get it, but it's funny, believe me." If they're not laughing, I'm doing my job wrong.

Mike Judge, who I've become friends with over the years never took himself seriously as an artist.

I've always believed that the stories and the performances are more important than I am. I think that the more invisible that my hand is, the more attention people can pay to the story and to those performances.

Most of the time when I have met artists who have meant a lot to me, the experience has been well above expectation. People like Iggy, Lou Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, Black Sabbath, Nick Cave, Hubert Selby Jr, Billy Gibbons, Al Pacino, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, Johnny Cash etc. have been really great to me. What strikes me is most of the time, the bigger the celeb/legend, the more polite and cool they are. It's the insecure ones who treat you like they're doing you a favor by shaking your hand.