When I was running the Troubadour, there was this transition from the classic singer/songwriter Jackson Browne types to bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and Fear. Those are just some that come to mind. Oh, and Adam Ant! The Fear fans wanted to 'crush' the Ants. These guys hated each other.
But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that's the center of it, that is it. It's almost like there's something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you're a songwriter that sings your material.
I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up, or at least a singer/songwriter.
There're lots of musicians in my family, too. My mother sings incredibly well. I've got to make a record with my mother's voice on it. She sings a lyric soprano. We do the opposite. I'm a baritone. She's a star singer in her church. She always does her solo.
I'm always shocked by that! I'm not the singer, I'm the songwriter who sings.
I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star or whatever.
Adam [Cohen] is a great singer-songwriter in his own right.
John [Lennon] as a singer - the way he sings on "Twist and Shout" and the way he sings on "Strawberry Fields Forever" - is a very odd voice, in the sense that it seems to be celebrating but almost mourning at the same time. There's a quality of mourning to his voice, which is very enigmatic.
When I started out, I wanted to be Billy Joel. The plan was to be a singer-songwriter of that ilk, and, then, I got waylaid - that's probably an unfair way to say it - from being a rock star by the musical theatre stuff, which I love doing.
It was like I had evolved to a certain stage where I was stuck in this songwriter bag as an image. But basically at heart, I'm a rocker. And I still am. But I was caught up in the singer/songwriter bag and I wasn't really enjoying it.
I don't like the word 'rock star' or 'super star.' I am a guitar player, a songwriter who got lucky because I stayed at it and didn't give up, long enough that people noticed me.
I never pretended to be rock star. I would make a lousy rock star. I don't have the right voice for it. I don't have the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" spirit. But the greatest flattery in the last couple of years is being called a "badass" by young singers.
The business today is completely different and it's very producer driven, so that a songwriter needs to have producing chops, be a singer, songwriter, or find a singer to develop.
Anyway, in my performance style, I'm a singer-songwriter. People can call it neo-soul or R&B or whatever. But at the core, when you see me live, I'm a singer-songwriter.
The business today is completely different and it's very producer driven, so that a songwriter needs to have producing chops, be a singer/songwriter, or find a singer to develop.
Well, I don't like the word 'rock star,' the two words, 'rock star.' Not even 'soft rock star. Not even limestone star. I don't like those words.