My favorite type of music to sing to would be rock and roll, Tenacious D, Led Zeppelin, some Queen - I love all of them. I love singing to them because they're all just great voices. I love listening to very obscure jazz.
What I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies. In pop music, it's all about the techno beat to dance to in the club and the repetitiveness, whereas in rock music there is literally, like, balls-to-the-wall singing and playing. I love it.
No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star.
I'm not in it for the money. I like music. I love to write music. I can't imagine myself not playing or singing or writing. It would just drive me crazy if I didn't.
Good rock 'n' roll is something that makes you feel alive. It's something that's human, and I think that most music today isn't. ... To me good rock 'n' roll also encompasses other things, like Hank Williams and Charlie Mingus and a lot of things that aren't strictly defined as rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.
There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock n' roll in soul, there's rock n' roll in country. When you see people dress, and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know?
I have absolutely no interest in rock and roll. I'm just being David Bowie. Mick Jagger is rock and roll. I mean, I go out and my music is roughly the format of rock and roll, I use the chord changes of rock and roll, but I don't feel I'm a rock and roll artist. I'd be a terrible rock artist, absolutely ghastly.
I am fascinated by the places that music comes from, like fife-and-drum blues from southern Mississippi or Cajun music out of Lafayette, Louisiana, shape-note singing, old harp singing from the mountains - I love that stuff. It's like the beginning of rock and roll: something comes down from the hills, and something comes up from the delta.
I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well.
I love a little more driving rock and roll vibe and that kind of music has always spoke to me. I guess it just rubs off when I'm writing music.
I love playing and I love singing, and the writing. There's kind of a symbiotic relationship between the writing and the playing.
We weren't straight-A students. We didn't start playing until we were teenagers, and we started playing rock and roll and punk rock - power chords - before we ever thought we would play folk music. So virtuosity was just never in my reach.
Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy.
I'm a big rock 'n' roll head, I love country music, I love yodeling music. But I'm still black and funky.
Rock n' Roll came from the slaves singing gospel in the fields. Their lives were hell and they used music to lift out of it, to take them away. That's what rock n' roll should do - take you to a better place.
Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn't even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.