When you hear composer, you think, like, Beethoven: guy in a powdered wig, at a piano, furiously scribbling on manuscript paper. That's not the only image that a composer should bring up, you know. But that's kind of what we've said it is.
Chris Martin looks like a geography teacher.
I think we choose gear by the way that it looks. We choose lots of things by the way that it looks. I don't like bands that look like roadies. I don't like when I can't tell who's the guitar tech and who's the guitar player.
If you play acoustic guitar you're the depressed, sensitive guy.
We've got the pretty-boy lead singer and the fat, dumpy drummer, and I'm the zany guitarist. Sure, we've played up the image at times. But it's the music that matters most.
There's a persona that musicians carry with them. I like to find what's under the persona.
Eric Clapton always wanted to come out onstage with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder.
I still want to play music but I don't want to look like Donald Duck while I'm doing it.
I always loved the look of musicians. I've always admired them because they have a look - when I was growing up, it seemed that the ones I liked didn't need to have a stylist. Now there is this trend where everyone has a stylist, or follows the suggestions of a stylist, from designers on down.
I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn't, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely serious about pop music.
I feel like now if you're going to start a band you have to have an Instagram full of yourself looking a certain way, lined up like five dudes in mugshot alley, hanging out by the bridge or up against the wall, or "We're in a library for some reason!"
I don't think I have an image of being an underground musician. I have an image of being an uncompromising musician, and I am well known in Norway partly because of that.
Beethoven had a great look. It was very much about the drama of appearance.
I always loved the look of musicians. I've always admired them because they have a look - when I was growing up, it seemed that the ones I liked didn't need to have a stylist.
I never tried to emulate The Beatles, and I never really wanted to be like The Rolling Stones. I never really felt that I had the look or the demeanor of veteran musicians.
Stereotyping and generating brands around musicians I think contributes to their eventual demise.
