A Quote by Jon Batiste
My sense of style is influenced by how I feel. I want to express myself because they see you before they hear you. You want to come on stage, and what you look like should represent the song you are playing or the set you are about to play or the message in your music.
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I like playing at public schools. I like when there's more of a diverse audience. I'll play wherever people want to hear my music, and I'll be glad and grateful for the opportunity, but I'd rather not play for a bunch of white privileged kids. I'm not meaning that in a disrespectful way; you go where people want to hear your music. So if that's where people want to hear me play, I'm glad to play for them. But I'd rather play for an audience where half of them were not into it than one where all of them were pretending to be into it, for fear of being uncultured.
I just don't really listen to music. I'm probably missing out, but I don't want to know what everybody else is doing. Nobody is strong enough to not be influenced. And I don't mean influenced by copying - I'd be influenced because I wouldn't want to do what someone else is doing. I want to be able to do whatever I feel like doing and not worry about anything.
It'd be negligent to say that I don't want to be at the top of the charts. Of course I do, it's proof that your song is being heard. But I think it's more about the work for me and being proud of what I'm doing in music than what people think about my music. I want to like my music before you like it. I don't want to sell anything that I don't really like. I don't want to sell myself short just to get to the top of the charts. It doesn't feel that great. Feeling proud of your work feels greater than being at the top of the charts.
At this stage of my life, I've dedicated myself to playing what I want to play, how I want to play it for the rest of my time. Regardless of whether one might like it or one might not like it, this is where I am.
I think that if you listen to the same exact genre of music that you play, it is so easy to be influenced by it. There will be times where we are writing a song, and then realize that it songs like something we just heard on the radio. There was a while when we were writing, that I didn't listen to music because I didn't want to be influenced.
I decided about a year ago, and I just feel like I want to see more personal style in people, and I feel like if I'm going to be out there in the public eye, they should see who I am and how I dress, and I feel like it, also.
For me, the biggest thing I've learned is how to be myself and the fact that viewers actually want to feel like they're getting to know you as a person. They value you because you're a reporter and you're bringing them new information, but they also want to feel like they get a sense of your sense of humor and what things you're interested in.
My advice to women who habitually gravitate toward musicians is that they learn how to play an instrument and start making music themselves. Not only will they see that it's not that hard, but sometimes I think women just want to be the very thing they think they want to sleep with. Because if you're bright enough--no offense, Tawny Kitaen--sleeping with a musician probably won't be enough for you to feel good about yourself. Even if he writes you a song for your birthday. Don't you know that a musician who writes a song for you is like a baker you're dating making you a cake? Aim higher.
I do feel like no matter what you're doing, whether it's music or writing a play or a poem or drawing a picture or painting something, that you're speaking to what is it you want to express, what is it you want to see.
I want people to listen to the lyrics of each song and absorb the music fully before they look at me and make a judgment about what they think my music will or should sound like.
When I create a song, I immediately think about what I'm going to wear when I perform that song. I think about the music video treatment and about how I'm going to look on stage when I perform the record. The connection is so obvious that it's a single package. An outfit, to me, is almost a tool to express the music.
I set a Google Alert for myself, and now I'm seeing people say my music influenced them and how great it is all the time. Sometimes I listen to this stuff that's supposed to be influenced by me, and I can't hear myself in it. But I'd rather they say it than not.
Facebook is fantastic because it gives me contact with my fans, but I feel like it's not about the music anymore - it's about how many friends you have on Facebook and your Instagram pictures. I hate that. I feel so bad for the talented new bands that are working so hard, and they have to fight with these monsters where it's all about the appearance. I don't want to be a part of that - going to a festival and taking a selfie on stage. I feel like it's such bad publicity for music and for true artists, and I'll try to fight as hard as I can to not be like that.
The bottom line is fans just want to hear a good song. Some people will look underneath to see who wrote it, but they just want to hear a good song. And if they don't hear it, they're not going to buy it just because you wrote it.
Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.
My parents were opera singers. I didn't want to play opera because I wasn't good enough. I didn't want to play their music; I wanted to play the music that I wanted to play, and I'm so lucky that today I get to play that music, even though I don't like every song I write.
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