It’s a lot more fun to write with your friends and to celebrate success together when they’re attached to a song. But I try to put one song that’s a solo write on every record. It doesn’t always happen.
Musicians Quotes
I guess that was part of why I stepped back from consuming the internet in a really consistent way – I wanted to know what I would make when I wasn’t dialed into what everyone else was making.
Once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin.
I tried to set myself up for not being put in a box. Well, how do you do that? First of all, nothing can sound alike in what you’re doing.
When I put my hand on the piano, what you hear, what people hear, what I’ve done in my life is my honest music — it’s not me trying to be anybody.
My goal when I go in the studio with a singer is I believe in my head that I’m going to get a better vocal out of this singer than he or she has ever done before or ever will do again.
It was a special thrill to meet, paint and hang out with Ringo Starr. I painted a series of portraits of Ringo to celebrate his birthday one year. I also painted a Baldwin piano for him benefitting one of his charities, MusiCares, which helps musicians in times of need. I painted a second piano for […]
I’ve always steered clear of situations that involved spontaneous music in an intimate setting. It always sort of terrified me, because I’m really a “studio guy”. I work really hard to achieve the sound and performances that I get. I’m not a spontaneous, song-and-dance guy who can sit down at a piano and jam.
I know that when I am in the audience, whether you come out with a ukulele or a marching band, all I ask you give me everything you’ve got to give. That’s what I did for the last 50 years.
When the call came in for us to appear in “Ozark,” my reaction was, “They’re going to have REO Speedwagon playing on a riverboat in the Lake of the Ozarks?”
