A Quote by Mat Kearney
I never play all new stuff, because you got to "dance with the girl that brought you" what is that saying? You got to play the songs that got you there, so I love playing the songs from my very first record.
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Well, you know, when you're putting together a show, you've got to be careful not to load it up with the new stuff. We have to play the songs that people want to hear, too. People may come thinking, "Oh, I've just got to hear this song." Or maybe they'll write me a letter saying a certain song is really meaningful to them, so we'll be sure to play those songs.
When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn't play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.
I have amassed an enormous amount of songs about every particular condition of humankind - children's songs, marriage songs, death songs, love songs, epic songs, mystical songs, songs of leaving, songs of meeting, songs of wonder. I pretty much have got a song for every occasion.
I got my first guitar when I was 11. It was an electric, and I can remember just wanting to be Avril Lavigne! But I got annoyed with having to plug it in and play with amps and pedals and stuff. Then I got given a cheap acoustic, a Tanglewood, and I thought it was awesome because I could play it anywhere!
I love good momentum. It makes everybody happy and in this time that we're living in, especially musically speaking, if you can make a record that has more than 4 or 5 songs deep and it has a good variety of songs. You don't frontload it with those first couple of songs. You continue the record taking the listener on a journey, musically speaking. I think you've really got something there.
I think my legacy is important because my songs - perhaps more than those of any other songwriter I know - cover every movement from 1965 on, socially and artistically. If you want songs about ecology, I've got ecology songs; if you want songs about spirituality, I've got spiritual songs.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
All the new songs have been written since the re-issue of Diamond Day. With my first royalties I got a Mac and a little mixer and a keyboard, figured out the basics of a music program, and gradually started to write and record the songs and the arrangements.
I've never been burdened with a hit record, so I don't have to play the same songs. I play songs people think they like.
I've got all of the old school vinyls from the '70s - even further back, like the jazz music in the '40s, '50s, '60s. Then I've got all the '80s stuff underground, hip-hop when hip-hop really first started. The '90s stuff. All of the good stuff, because I'm really into music, and it helps me create new songs now.
It never really interested me in the past but, for the first time, I wanted to make a pop record. I thought a good way of doing it would be to make songs that didn't really make sense to me as songs; songs that I couldn't just sit down and play in front of someone and then get them to play over it.
I think the old school, back in the day, 10 to 15 years ago in music, is like you launch one single and you just let that ride out. Right now, you've got folks like Chris Brown, he just won't let up, he's got mixtape after mixtape, they're playing songs on the radio from the mixtape and then he's got songs on the album and videos and he's got remixes he's jumping on.
My first couple shows, I figured I should be playing the guitar and singing. That felt weird, but I got good at it pretty quick, and I learned my songs and how to play them.
I have a very eclectic iPod. So I've got my cardio people - so it's anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song 'Tightrope,' that's a good cardio song. And then I've got Sting. I've got Mary J. Blige. I've got The Beatles. I've got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.
In 'Blindspotting' I play a girl from Oakland, I've got an accent, I've got long, '90s 'Poetic Justice' braids, and in 'Monsters and Men' I play a girl from Brooklyn.
So I realized when I was successful in a piece, it was because I didn't abandon a notion early on what it ought to be, and I let it take me along. So I've had songs that started out as being about the environment and ended up being love songs and love songs that ended up being about the environment. I've had things that I thought would be a poem and realized that it was just too big for that. I've got to do something larger and it became a play. I wrote one poem that started a whole play.
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