Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.
Technology was something I avoided when I started out - I didn't even have electric guitars. Only played acoustic.
I don't want to write any more for the old Man-power instruments and am handicapped by the lack of adequate electrical instruments for which I now conceive my music.
But, you know, all good rock is easy.
I just want to shed light, illuminate and turn the spotlight over to all of the black people who have been being futuristic and innovative since instruments were plugged into a wall. With computers, machines, and music, black people have been contributing to that a great deal for a long time.
Electric guitars are an abomination, whoever heard of an electric violin? An electric cello? Or for that matter an electric singer?
I wanted to take the power of thought and the word, along with the power of speaking and heart, and see if we could wire what was coming out of us as humans with electric instruments.
Pan Sonic sound like they are playing music of the future made with the electric instruments of yesterday.
I like big shows, a lot of volume and a lot of energy. I love electric instruments. But I do love mixing those with bluegrass instruments and cranking those up, too, with a little bit of that rock energy.
The thing is, acoustic could be like a four-letter word to a lot of kids.
Whoever heard of an electric violin, electric cello or, for that matter, an electric singer?
When we started the Allman Brothers Band, there was this great new technology that allowed us to get exposure: FM radio.
I'm seeing and hearing lots of B to B instruments, and everybody isn't, you know, using them... a lot of these guys are trying to do it on conventional guitars, although that has its own sound, and maybe its okay.
I think what makes the Byrds stand up all these years is the basis in folk music. Folk music, being a timeless art form, is the foundation of the Byrds. We were all from a folk background. We considered ourselves folk singers even when we strapped on electric instruments and dabbled in different things.
I think the great country songs mixed with some of that bluegrass instrumentation - and surrounding all that with a little bit of a rock vibe and energy - is the kind of music I make.
