I don't think you need a record deal to write songs. You don't need any other reason than you want to do it. It's a far cry from why some people do music today. They make it to order, which is pretty horrible.
I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band write the songs. The band play the music. It's the band's fans who buy the records. The band is responsible for whether it's a great record or a horrible record. Royalties belong to the band. I would like to be paid like a plumber. I do the job and you pay me what it's worth.
If it came back I would be thrilled. I would be delighted to write more songs. I need them now because I want to make an album and I have to depend on other people's music, which I've done for years. But still, it'd be really nice to be able to sprinkle it with my own.
I am a woman, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a human being as any other human. I just happen to write songs and perform them, and I am lucky to be able to make a living with my music. Other than that, I smile, laugh, and cry, like any other woman.
Teachers have such hard jobs and they don't get paid well. And in order to be a teacher you need a lot of education, so people aren't teachers for any other reason than they want to be, and they want to help educate the next generation of people.
I don't want to do children's music. I write kids songs, but the kids songs I write are for my kids - like when I'm putting them to bed. We sing some song that we made up but I don't want to make a record like that.
I've been on record since 2005 saying we need to find a way to eliminate the use of the pre-existing condition. The way to do that is really to get everyone in the insurance pool, and that way, we'll have people who need health services today, some who need it tomorrow, and some who won't need it for quite some time.
The artist thing is just natural. If that comes out, the music, the songs, I need some actual time which I dedicate to it. But I don't have to sit down eight hours a day in order to get out what I need to create. That is just always bubbeling inside and than evetually it just comes out.
Once I discovered music and that you don't need to just use words but can add a growl to the melody, that releases so much more. I never want to make music for any other reason.
Music is an emotion and it makes you feel a certain way. Some songs make you want to dance, while some make you think. Some songs are positive, while some people see those songs as negative.
I think we make too many records. One record a year is crazy to me. But some people have to sell tickets. The label has to meet their quarterly number: 'We need a record a year.' All of a sudden, the tail's wagging the dog. It's not the music; it's everything else making the music. That's just backwards. It's wrong.
I think food is the great equalizer. Other than the ocean and the air, food is the thing that we all share in common. I think along with that comes the question of why are some people starving, and why do some people produce more food than they need, and why is food going to waste.
I don't think anyone listening to my music needs any special knowledge. They don't need to have a background in contemporary music. They don't need to go to new-music concerts all the time in order to be able to understand it.
You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things.
I don't want to change the way I write my songs, I like the way I write my songs, so I keep 'em the same. I'd like to write more country songs, but other than that, I'm pretty good where I am.
I do not need some guy around in order to get inspiration, in order to make a great record, in order to live my life, in order to feel okay about myself. And I wanted to show my fans the same thing.
You don't want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.