They say the music you listen to in your formative years stays with you and leaves an impression for the rest of your life. For me, the things that I fell in love with happened in the '70s, when artists were nurtured by record companies and it wasn't about singles.
Today, you're either very big or you're playing stadiums or you're not playing anymore. You're either popular where everybody will go to a 20,000 seat arena to see you or they won't go to see you at all.
Pop music will never be low brow.
It really does help everyone when there are some big bands leading the charge.
I think we're in a very low point of music right now.
People put mixtapes out every few months, every year. They come often. Not 'Mood Muzik.' It's a totally different type of monster. And when you hear it, you should be able to understand why.
MTV didn't exist in 1980, but by 1982, it had gotten to be a force to be reckoned with.
I have been working and composing music since 1986. Over the years, I have seen our music industry go through all kinds of transformation.
I have seen more bad songs make it because of MTV than good ones that haven't.
Why would heavy metal ever go away?
I had a style before I was signed, but now I'm developing my commercial sound as well as trying to strike a balance between authentic music and music that the masses will love.
When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard; that was not the focus.
I just don't get that new hot music. I don't know anything about all these groups like U2.
Ninety percent of the general public aren't gangstas, so all of the rappers aren't going to be gangstas.
Maybe it's because One Direction was just on 'SNL,' or because I'm playing The Wanted on my Top 40 show, but in terms of boy bands, we're seeing this resurgence, and it's happening, whether you like it or not!
I don't know if a song is going to be a hit or it's going to flop. I never know. I just do the music and if people like it, they like it.
It's not the coolest thing in the world to be walking around humming the Taylor Swift song. It's not as cool to be singing along with the number one song in the country as it is to be the jaded, indifferent hipster who wants to turn you on to something that nobody else is talking about.
We've been gone five years and the best they could come up with was boy bands?
Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.
I'm from the '80s, man. I got ideas; that's what we do.
I've lost touch with a lot of that boutique-type music just because of my age, and raising my son and the multiple jobs I have at this point.
I become more seasoned, it's less interesting to try and compete in the pop market.
Hit songs are mysterious and slippery beasts; few artists have a lock on them. This means that many people, like me, have become fans of songs rather than fans of artists.
Fashion has always been influenced by hip-hop.
Rap is always evolving. It's easy for the old school to hate the new school, but it's a music that got a little stifled I think, by the Internet a little bit.
