I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.
If you've followed us from when we started playing live in October 2010, you will notice that there has been numerous changes over the years.
It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.
I've been playing live since I was in sixth grade.
Sometimes if you're in the studio for a very long time, you want to get out and play live shows and vice versa.
When everything is together - the band, me, the audience, it's boss! It's just like magic.
A concert is always like a feast day to me.
My first concert was Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey.
I love music. I love going out dancing.
Widespread Panic discovered a couple of my songs and started doin' 'em on the gigs. They'd take a song and expand it and everybody plays a long time and people really like that. But I made my living as a songwriter so I try to get to singin' and get it over with.
The live setting is always better for me. I usually thrive at live. I feel like having a band behind me and being able to interact with the crowd helps boost my energy up.
I am the audience. I want to observe people. Even when I'm playing drums onstage, I'm watching people. I'm looking at them and their faces and their T-shirts and their signs. And travelling by motorcycle, especially, the world is just coming at me.
Doing the acoustic at Carnegie is basically advised because electric music tends to get, let's just say, acoustically unsound.
We did 300 shows in our first two years.
I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale.
When you tour, you regain the music and the connection with the audience.
I regularly go to concerts with my children sharing the music.
I saw B.B. King in concert one time where he had this guy that would bring him out a glass of water and towel to wipe his forehead with.
The first time I went crowd surfing was heaven.
One night all the James Brown band was playing on stage and I look in the back and I could see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards trying to get in the club and they couldn't get in cause it was to crowded.
I love playing live, and doing big TV shows are exciting.
When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.
We've played everywhere since I started The Licks. We've played arenas, clubs, school cafeterias and bowling alleys. It doesn't matter where the venue is; we're gonna bring you the rock!
Looking back, we had the hard time, but the privilege, of actually coming up playing biker bars and little bitty college bars.
I just want to play music with a band, live.
