A Quote by Tom Petty

'Southern Accents,' I think that's one of my best, really. That would have been 1984, and I wrote that on the piano in the studio at home. I had a studio, and I just happened to be down there in the middle of the night. It was quite late, probably early morning, and I just started to play, and a song just started to appear.
I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on 'Late Night.' We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.
I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.
From activist stage, I just spoke and said whatever I had to say. When the writing started, I would just read it. Then I had the interest into going into musical aspects. When that happened in '86, I liked the result of work we did in the studio.
If I have a song that I feel is really one of my best songs, I like it to have a formal studio recording because I believe that something being officially released on a studio record gives it a certain authority that it doesn't quite have if it comes out on a live album or is just a part of your show, you know.
I would rather be hired solely for my talent, not just to fill a quota. I also don't want to shoot just any studio movie just to say I'm shooting studio movies - for me, quality of the material comes first, and if eventually that leads to a really great studio project, then that's a bonus.
At some point, I went to the studio and nothing happened. It can be really depressing to sit there and wait for the inspiration that doesn't come. I had to start recording rough song ideas before going to the studio. I did that at home whenever I had a good idea.
Right when I moved to L.A., I started writing. I wrote some screenplay. I'm sure it's terrible. But I wrote a screenplay by myself. When I first moved to L.A., I had no friends. I didn't know anybody. I just sat in a little studio apartment, and I wrote a screenplay.
I started writing when I was around 6. I say 'writing,' but it was really just making up stuff! I started writing and doing my own thing. I didn't really know what a demo was or anything like that, so I started getting interested in studio gear and started learning about one instrument at a time. My first instrument was an accordion.
I only started playing piano because I had chickenpox when I was about 14 and wasn't allowed to play my drums for a whole week... We had a piano in the house, so I just sat down and played that instead.
My father was a songwriter and he had a studio, and I was always surrounded by musicians and people creating music. I think I just always believed that that was a normal job, and people waking up at lunchtime and working until late at night, that to me always just was quite a normal job.
I just want to be in the studio 24/7. Even if I'm not working on a song right then, just sit in the studio. That's what I love.
I'd do a song in the studio and it would explain everything I'm going through so perfectly that when I went home and I felt down I could listen to that to make me feel better. It's a documentation of my life. I think it's just important to put it out there.
I can play the piano. I started off with lessons, and then, as we always had a piano in the house, I would play around and became quite good.
The process is always the same. I get an inspiration for a new song, I put it down on paper immediately so I won't lose it. When I am ready to go to the studio with it, I play it a few times on the piano and edit, add, and type the lyrics and take it to the studio. Sometimes I don't have anything on paper.
It would be a dream come true if I could just go from studio to studio and play solos.
The interesting thing is that, well, here's what I think about songwriters and songs. Sometimes people sit down and say, "I gotta write a song today, I have a title" and all of that, and sometimes inspiration just happens, almost like "Sugar, Sugar" and a couple of the other songs. But basically, I just started playing the piano, and I'm not a great piano player.
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