A Quote by Johnny Van Zant

I just love going out and playing my brother's songs. — © Johnny Van Zant
I just love going out and playing my brother's songs.
We kind of just got more mature and more realistic with what we're doing. We kinda said, "We quit our jobs and we quit college to do this, and we're going to be playing these songs every day just about, y'know, on a stage... so let's write songs that we're never gonna get sick of playing." Songs that aren't just gonna follow a trend of what's going on right now, y'know?
I just love to see the crowd reactions when I drop certain songs. There's some songs that you just know are going to pull out some serious emotions with people, and I love seeing that.
The research they do is incredible. I was overwhelmed. They have a great thing going on out there. In reality, this came from one brother's love for another brother. Seeing the center up in his brother's behalf, it's an unbelievable thought.
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.
With DJing, there's still an art to it - you get two DJs and give them songs to play, one can play it better. There is a way, and it's not just about the songs you're playing, it's about how you mix, the timing, when you cut out and in. I love it, and I love feeling the excitement of the crowd - you go on this journey with them for an hour or so.
I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can.
There are great songs out there, and if I love them, and I know them, I'm going to sing them just because that's what songs are for.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
Everybody tends to overplay live. That's just the nature of playing live. And that can be great, but it can also kill something that's special, and intimate, about a recorded version of a song. You find out very quickly which songs you can play, and which songs you do damage to by playing them live.
And at the time, for one of the few times in my life I didn't have a band, I just had myself and the guitar, so I was going to have to do something with just my voice, just the guitar and just my songs that was going to move someone enough to give me a shot. So I wrote songs that were very lyrically alive and lyrically dense. And they were unique, but it really came out of the motivation to - or I understood it was - I was going to have to make my mark that way.
I love deeply, and when it comes to singing love songs and something that I have no problem doing, I put all of my heart and soul into these love songs. I know my fans out there are listening, taking these songs to heart. Like I say, they're relating these songs to their lives, too, and their relationships.
I'm always going to have the puppets, probably not for the rest of my life, but I'm not going to stop doing ventriloquism anytime soon. I'm just going to add singing, recording songs, and maybe playing in a TV show.
I just love music. I love writing songs. It's not even a job; it's a gift. I'm waiting for someone to kick me out of the party because I snuck in here, and I keep thinking somebody's going to figure out that I have no clue. Turns out that most of them have even less of a clue.
If I completely understood what was going on and I understood these songs, they wouldn't make sense to play live anymore. They're still enigmatic for me. I'm still searching in the songs as they are. That's what's actually been the most fun about playing and touring for me is that there's still a lot of caverns in the songs where you can go and hide out different nights.
I love playing rock music, man. You give me a guitar in my hands, and I go out there, and, for me, it's like...you know, some dudes like hunting, fishing, going out and playing ball in the backyard with their buddies on a rainy day. I like being out with my buddies playing rock guitar. That's what I love to do.
Once you get out there and start playing basketball, whether the NBA or college or whatever arena you are playing in or who you are playing in front of, the juices start going, and you want to just go out there and play to the best of your abilities.
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