A Quote by George Ezra

I guess it's kind of the obvious thing for me to do 'cuz it's what I grew up listening to. The songs growing up and everything kind of seem like old music to them, but to me, it's just... good music. And of course I did grow up in England in the 21st Century and that does come into it as well.
I kind of grew up a guitar nerd and I tried to figure out how to shred on an acoustic guitar as a kid, while listening to jazz or whatever. So that is kind of a different thing and my church background, growing up with worship kind of the ground that I learned how to play music from. Those are all odd ways of growing up, compared to most people, so I think the music has plenty of uniqueness in that.
I opened up my mind as far as playing music. I was at a Cody Chesnutt concert a few years ago, and a friend introduced me to him. We just started talking about music, and he asked me what I did. I said, "I have these songs and I'm kind of nervous to put them out, because I've just kind of been playing blues stuff, and playing other people's songs." He said, "You should just put them out there, man. Why not? It's just gonna bother you if you don't. The easiest thing to do is to just let it go." So I just took that with me.
Yes, I've been down the pike and back. And through the years, I've heard different songs with scatting in it, and it was - always cracked me up as kind of a funny style of music, you know? When I did it, it kind of cracked me up as a comedy kind of routine.
I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.
We grew up listening to music like that: we grew up on the snap music, grew up off the trap music, grew up on all the South sound.
When I started it still wasn't okay to be this age and still make this kind of music. And believe me, I consider our stuff to be much poppier than - we're not on like cutting edge, that kind of thing anymore. And even though we're not doing Britney Spears music or Nsync, it's still what I consider to be pop music. So that does give you a little bit more longevity, I guess. But if somebody told me I'd be getting up there and singing "Heartbreaker" at fifty I'd laugh. So I don't know, I have no idea.
I grew up listening to a lot of Malaysian pop music, which is kind of like a mixture of traditional and pop... I was also listening to a lot of English music as well.
I grew up listening to The Band. I love Lowell George. I love Little Feat, and I was listening to some Springsteen, some of the deep album cuts. I just like the looseness of that kind of music. It all feels like they did it in one take. They let whatever happened happen. If it felt good, they kept it.
My mother comes from the Dominican Republic, so I have the Latin side in me, and I grew up with Gypsies. But I like any kind of music as long as it's good music.
I grew up in my neighborhood with salsa, of course bachata, but also hip-hop, Nirvana - it was just like a mixed culture. It was a beautiful thing for me because at the moment I started creating music, having all these different sounds and elements, it was very organic because I grew up with all these types different music.
I would say I grew up listening a lot to Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland and Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. I grew up listening to those because my parents were kind of into folk music.
With writing music and writing songs and recording music and coming up with stuff, you need to kind of reengage that kind of inner child to come up with interesting perceptions.
Ask about music growing up, I'll tell you I grew up playing classical music, and I didn't grow up in a musical household.
I loved acting as a kid because I was kind of shy, so it brought me out of myself. Acting for kids is like playing house, you know? But growing up in Hollywood, it just made it seem possible. It wasn't like some idea of going to Hollywood; it was in my backyard. I lived two blocks from Grauman's Chinese Theatre growing up. It was what people did. It's an industry town. So it wasn't some far-off fantasy, it was like "Oh yeah, when you grow up, you do this because that's what people do here."
I reckon that growing up, listening to so much different music, I think over time I just kind of sucked it all in and it probably comes back out through my music.
But I feel like I developed my own love for hip-hop and rap music by myself. Just growing up and hearing new things. As you grow up, you begin to listen to new music that this kid is listening to, then you begin to like your own music, and start discovering it yourself.
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