I started to perform when I was 12... I don't talk too much. I let the music do the talking.
I think the main objective is to move people, make people think in their heart. I personally am not interested in appealing to other musicians. To me, it's more inspiring to move someone who doesn't know anything about music but has a feel.
My aim is for every song to have a purpose - for you to be able to say, 'This song is about this.' But love and heartbreak are some of the most abstract subjects.
With my music, I can express myself so much. A lot of the fans can sense that I'm relating to them something that's quite personal.
When I write songs, when I sing songs, I don't have anybody in mind. I'm just trying to express what I think people are feeling.
Music is a language of emotion. I'm passionate about it because I think it's the most direct way to connect to the things that are ineffable. Words just aren't necessary a good enough opportunity to express. Words are maybe less than accessible at expressing.
I like to be dramatic in my music because that's when it gets to your heart.
Like anything important, anything you need people to hear - you've got to have music for it. You've got to make it at least a little piece of a song or sometimes a whole song.
We had something to say. Whenever we played, people didn't dance, they listened.
For me, getting my personality across is so important in getting that connection for people that enjoy my music.
I can show you in music better than I can tell you in words.
If there is a doctrine, a message behind Live, it's just that wordless intensity that doesn't necessarily have to mean anything.
I know that when I like music, when it touches my heart, that it will touch your heart, too. That, I think, is the secret to my success.
Reading and writing music is a wonderful way of getting ideas in your head down to someone else who reads and writes, but if you don't read and write, and the other musician you're playing with are trying to express something who doesn't read and write, than it's a question of "I wrote" so that you must learn from listening and from understanding where that's coming from.
I write for myself; I release the albums to connect with everyone else.
They all trying to say something with music that you can't say with plain talk. There ain't really no words for love or pain. And the way I see it, only fools go around trying to talk their love or talk their pain. So the smart people make music and you can kinda hear about it without them saying anything.
Music helps me tell my story. That's where I can really be heard. But there's so much focus on the things that aren't music.
If I write for beauty and truth, the songs will find their way to me. Then, it's the songs that speak to the audience, and they can become part of the tribe that is into what I do.
That's all I ever wanted to do: put out music from the heart that people could relate to.
Writing from a personal experience can bring about this emotion and power of emotion that can be instantly connected to the instrument, my voice.
Singing intimately is almost like thinking into a microphone, so it helps to have the song buried inside you.
For me, even if I'm singing to a very large audience, like in 'The Sound of Music Live' or in the 'She Loves Me' broadcast, I try to imagine that I am just singing to each individual. It doesn't change my energy other than being perhaps a bit more nervous. I try to sing to each person and right into their individual heart.
I miss the emotion of singing. There is something about it which means you can express emotions to people without actually talking to them.
When I step on the stage and sing 'Wait for It,' I'm singing that for everybody. I don't mean I'm singing it for them; I mean, you are their voice.
I talk by playing, not by words.
