I played with Prince in 2010... the America tour. The one with Misty Copeland dancing on top of the piano! But Prince played the piano on that song. But I played two dates with him on that tour. When we played the gig, every couple of songs, Prince would change his clothes.
Not every song of Lynyrd Skynyrd's was a single, but songs like 'Tuesday's Gone' and 'The Ballad of Curtis Loew' and 'Made in the Shade,' 'I Need You,' people learned those songs from the radio because radio played albums, not just singles.
You have to remember that I played longer than anybody else on the main tour; I played until I was 40, and then played another six years or so on the seniors tour.
I was invited to L.A. when I was 16 for a weekend-long songwriting session by a writer I had met through my voice teacher in Pittsburgh. My first hit, 'Hide Away,' was one of the songs written during those sessions. It was played for a radio rep who then started a new label; the song got a pretty organic start at radio and then took off.
They say that no one's gonna play this on the radio. They said the melancholy blues were dead and gone. But only songs like these played in minor keys, keep those memories holding on.
We're a live band. Some bands write their songs in the studio - we don't do that. We're playing songs on this tour that were written three days before the tour. And it feels good to try these songs.
When I do a song, it is more or less for the radio because I've got to do it - that's what I have got to do to win - I always go home and write two street songs.
Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.
College radio is a very important medium that needs to survive in difficult economic times when some stations are being sold off and shut down. College radio is the future for broadcasting stars and pioneers of tomorrow, and we as a band, Coldplay, support the vital mission of college radio and we also support College Radio Day, the day when college radio comes together.
Day one through three of the radio tour, I actually went by Camaron Ochs. I went to my first set of radio remotes, and everybody was just like 'What's your last name?' It's not easy to pronounce. The first two minutes I got with people, that's what they wanted to talk about, and sometimes those two minutes is all you get.
I made two or three albums with money from my own pocket, but I couldn't get them released or played on the radio. I got tired of beating my brains out. I got very depressed. I took a break from the business. Then I got bored with that and had to come back.
My tour manager, I met him at Boot Barn. He was selling me a pair of boots... and he said, 'I moved to Nashville to be a tour manager, and I need work right now,' and I said, 'Man, I don't even have a tour manager. So you can tour-manage me.'
When I say I don't have to write pop songs anymore, there's no way I'm going to get on the radio at 60 years of age unless I'm doing a duet with Gaga or I was on 'All of the Lights,' which was a Kanye West record that managed to get on the radio.
You get to a certain age, and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines; you're not going to get played on radio, and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.
Every time I'm home from tour I try to write some new songs, but it can get really hard trying to keep up with normal life, I always get so behind.
When I say I don't have to write pop songs anymore, there's no way I'm going to get on the radio at 60 years of age unless I'm doing a duet with [Lady] Gaga or I was on All of the Lights, which was a Kanye West record that managed to get on the radio.