Intimate Performance Quotes

There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it.

There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

There's something about approaching universal truths with the simplicity of the acoustic guitar. You can take it anywhere, and it helps me reach listeners of all ages and walks of life.

It's nice to be in a smaller room. I like the big arenas as well, but at my core, I'm a live performer, so it's nice to be able to feel the warmth of everybody in the room.

I'm a big fan of songs like Joe Cocker's 'You Are So Beautiful' and Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight' - songs that go straight to the point.

In those days a concert was a personal experience. I wanted to be as close as possible to the audience, and of course big stadiums didn't enable you to do that. It wasn't my style.

My pussy game cold, when he hit it he say burrrr

I've always written songs that were confessional, acoustic, wordy - my writing style matches my personality. The music always has to match the mouth it comes out of.

I've been told by a lot of people after concerts that they felt the show was just for them. And I try to make it that way.

Billy Pilgrim music is very emotional. It's one part the craft we learned from people like the Indigo Girls and R.E.M., and one part the Tom Waits craft, where you're trying to create a moment.

The Nirvana unplugged album was something we'd always knew we were capable of doing, but it was just a matter of doing it right.

I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.

Real music to me is real; it's what you feel.

When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn't the distance or the separation that there is now.

Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music, and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no, like, 'I'll be the rock star, you be the adulating fan.'

I play and I've played in heavy bands, but when I write for myself, I don't particularly feel like writing huge rock riffs. It just doesn't work for me and my voice.

I have performed for thousands when they found me exotic, the vogue, daring, but I have danced, at any given time, for about ten people... They were the ones that left the theater forever different from the way they were when they came in. All of my long, long life, I have danced for those ten.

Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.

The difference when I'm writing a story versus writing a joke is that writing a joke is so much more about the structure and it's less about the conversation. To me, the thing that I love about stand-up is the intimacy between performer and audience.To get it even more conversational was something that really appealed to me and that I really enjoyed doing. My early experiments with it, with just telling a story from my life on stage, it was so satisfying to do. And seemingly for the audience as well. It's a different thing, and it's a different feeling and a different vibe.

I think my least favourite thing to listen to is perfect songs, perfect performances. They don't feel human to me, and in that respect, they lose any kind of sincerity. I don't know why. It's just my ears.

In chamber music, the audience can hear each instrument and understand (and feel) what the composer and the musicians have in mind as they play.

Singing intimately is almost like thinking into a microphone, so it helps to have the song buried inside you.

I've had the pleasure of working closely with Marc Von Em as a singer, but when I heard his original stuff, I asked him to open up a 10,000 seat gig. Just him, his guitar, and his songs. He killed it!

I really love going to shows where I'm sandwiched between people, and you don't know if the sweat on you is yours or the person's next to you.

Our music comes from our hearts - and it always has.