Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.
I tend to latch on to things pretty obsessively for awhile. I listened to Russian pop music exclusively for almost five years. It's weird.
I thank the Creator of the universe to have discovered the discipline of music was the greatest gift that I could have been given, the possibility to be a student working in the world.
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
When I begin working on a production, I don't really think about my previous album or albums. I try to have a real creative process.
I mostly listen to things that are so different because there's something so intriguing about trying to understand where someone is coming from.
When I'm in the studio with a writer, I don't mind for them to take the lead and show me something new.
The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.
What motivates us is always new music.
To some degree, as I move outside of the exclusive genre audience, the exclusive genre issues don't bother me as much. Maybe that's just speculation.
When I was around 11, my dad took me to see Santana live, and then I got 'Sacred Fire,' and everything changed for me.
At 14, I was in my own little classic rock country band. Then, after high school, I started another band called Northern Comfort. That was based out of Chico, Calif.
I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.
For better or worse, I'm interested in just about everything: every different type of music I can imagine. I can never see a reason to choose just one type of music at the exclusion of everything else. Different types of music are capable of being rewarding in different kinds of ways.
I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.
When I was a young student, I only listened to foreign music, mainly rock music and hard rock. Then I surprised myself by discovering ethnic music. Now I like to listen to music from different places, and in many situations. Even when you work, some ethnic music calms the nerves.
From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony.
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.
I got a guitar when I was six and, instead of learning other people's songs, started to try to write my own, even at that young age.
I couldn't have written things like 'Low' and 'Heroes,' those particular albums, if it hadn't have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.
I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
The main thing for all of us was having a ballad, a slower song. Finally, they get to hear more of a vulnerable side to us! We didn't really have that in 'Reflection,' and that's something we all fought for.
If a musician dares to get out of the box he's been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I've always been known as someone who 'moves around' and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we're put.
After 12 intense years of rock music, I was happy to get away from making a record and going out on a tour. When I did it, I wanted to feel inspired. After a while I finally had my fill working on other people's music, and I started coming up with music on my own and said, 'This could be for me.'
I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.
