Musical Authenticity Quotes

All I can do is focus on staying true to the style of music I write and sing because that is the only way it's going to come off as honest.

I've always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn't have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.

I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don't do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there's a whole magic there.

I hate that sense of entitlement or the sense of business crawling into playing music.

You get a lot of who you are as a musician across through the music you write. If you're writing your own music, then it's important to be really honest.

After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.

Life experience makes the best music. That's the thing that nobody else can offer. Nobody else can offer my life. I have a life that is fit for movies, music, and so forth. Nobody else can give that.

Yes, indeed, in fact I would tell you that we go out of our way to be true to the original feeling and sort of sonic and musical pallet that we painted with back then.

I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down.

I know what my sound is. I'm just trying to get it out there how I can explain it. I'm not trying to write or put out some music that doesn't represent me.

In my music career, I never was interested in working and writing and creating songs based on what kind of rewards I could receive in return - a hit song, per se, is what most contemporary artists have to deal with when they deal with a label.

When you listen to my songs, you hear messages and real stories. That's what's setting me apart.

I'm trying everything I can not to be jaded 'cause I don't like jaded musicians.

People have become less discriminating listeners, which is tragic, really. There's a lot of emperor's new clothes out there, whether they're female or male solo acts. That bothers me. It's hard to break through, and it's like climbing Mount Everest if you actually do.

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

How I set myself apart is by creating the sort of real and honest music, which is who I'm also trying to be.

I have no preconceived ideas; I gave that up a long time ago… The only thing we can do as musicians is make an album we like, and an album that we consider to be incredibly good.

When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.

I have always been a singer/songwriter, and I was pushed in places I didn't want to do, like pop or top forty. I don't belong there.

The intent of Slayer's musical and lyrical content has always been selfish. We feel very strongly about the importance of staying true to ourselves.

I always try to write about something that's actually happened or it doesn't always have to have happened to me, but it has to have happened at some point. So every single lyric that you hear comes from some kind of story that I've come across in my life. I like to think that that maybe helps me mean it a bit more and if you don't mean it, it ceases to be soul music.

I feel like trying to write a song in order to be a big hit is just not something I'm interested in because it's not going to come from an authentic place of expression.

It's become uncool to play other people's songs, and that's absurd. It has got to change. It's the reason why everything's so mediocre.

When I did 'Frankenstein,' the record company said, 'Now you can do 'Dracula' and 'Wolf Man' and we'll call the whole thing Monster Rock!' and I said, 'No, that's not going to happen, I'm not going to do that.' I kind of enjoy defying categorization. I love music in and of itself. I love the beauty of harmony and rhythm.

You cannot sing African music in proper English