Musical Sincerity Quotes

My idols are singers like Billie Holiday and Erykah Badu because there's no gloss on what they do.

That's what rock music is, I think - constantly searching for authenticity, and being as honest as possible.

Maybe some of the pronouns have changed, but I've always been honest in my music.

I've always appreciated people like Graham Parker or Loudon Wainwright III, who spend their entire lives writing songs and working their asses off just to have complete artistic freedom. They're just sharing their lives with you through their music. That's the same kind of work that I'm trying to do, in my own weird way.

I think that Chad Gray is one of the most honest, emotional, real vocalists there is; he really takes a lot of pride in writing the lyrics, takes a lot of time with them. He writes and re-writes more than just about anybody I've ever been around.

The emotions in a song - the anger, aggression - have got to be legitimate.

Too many times you come across lyrics that sound like you've heard them before or you can't really relate to them. And I think that I write songs that sound fresh and sensual in kind of a layered, lush way. But I also think that they are real, and that's why I wanted to call the record 'Inside Out.'

Most of the really good songs are dead true. ... It had to have happened to have the song be there. Every time I've tried to make stuff up it just kind of falls flat. So the majority of my work is something that happened to me, I saw happen to someone else, or a friend of mine told me happened. There is a certain amount of theatrical and poetic license. People are supposed to like it, that's why you're doing it. It's supposed to be fun. It's not brain surgery, it's heart surgery. They're just songs.

The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.

I just want people to be affected by the music. I'm really affected by my surroundings and put everything in my music - what I'm not getting and what I desire. I want it to be uncompromised... almost a spiritual thing.

To be a songwriter-singer means the songs come from deep within, and you treat them as an artist, with that much respect. I couldn't hardly cheat myself.

The first thing about a song is that it has to be real, be lived; it has to be emotional, and melancholic. I don't mean sad. Melancholy is sort of a comfort. Melancholy has a sort of beauty to it. This attracts me to every other form of art.

I've been a music fan all my life, and you know the difference when the musicians care.

It excites me when a person puts their whole self in a song or rhyme, or instrument. It fills me.

As frustrating as it is to not have a record come out, I have to make sure that it's worth putting out. I have to be trying to say something, for one. I have to not oversell what I'm trying to say. I can't 'Bono' it.

I want everything, no matter what concept or genre, to feel real, because it is real. I want to keep making real music, I hope people remember me for that, that's a good thing to be remembered for.

There is no seam between my songs and myself-they really are me. It's not like I'm performing; I'm just singing stuff that I really believe.

Being honest is my job. That's what music is for me.

I mean, Lady Gaga is trying to be a freak or whatever but that quality of being very meaningly and heartfelt, but also having a sense of humor about it, bands don't do that anymore. Lady Gaga's songs are cheesy. The Beatles weren't cheesy. That's the hardest thing with music: to not be cheesy, but also be meaningful. That's the goal, I think.

Landmarks to the muses that inspired the music. When I could tell it was sincere without trying to prove it

Some guys record an album with songs that are filler. I recorded this album like it was my last.

I can sing the blues and I have sung the blues. I feel it internally when I'm singing.

The reason Strapping Young Lad was such a good band was we were honest about what we were doing.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I want to express what's meaningful. I'm not into gimmicks. I want to make truthful music that's invigorating, maintains a cutting edge, takes on different shades.