A Quote by Todd Rundgren
I'm a guitar player, really - I mean, first and foremost - I grew up with all that great 1960s music, in terms of growing up, becoming a musician, so it's like first-love stuff; I'm always going to go back to it.
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Before I even pick up a guitar, usually the words are done. So I'm not first and foremost a musician. I'm first and foremost a writer.
For some reason as a kid growing up in Lubbock, Texas, I always thought I was going to go to UCLA. I think it was because they had such great sports teams, and it was in California, where the actors were. But even though I was talking about being an actor when I was young, I was first going to be a football player. My dream was "I'm going to go to UCLA and be a football player."
I grew up with my parents always listening to rock music. My dad wanted me to play guitar, but I always had more of an ear for drums. He really wanted me to be a guitar player, like him.
People don't understand what music really is. I've been a musician since I was 6 years old. I got my first piano, was playing recitals at 8, 10 I picked up a guitar, 12 I picked up my first Pearl Master drum set. I was an artist before I was an 'artist.'
Being broke and poor - I mean, you grow up in the environment I grew up in, grew up hard and grew up poor. Your mom doesn't have a car until you make it to the NBA... no telephone. So, I mean, if you grow up like that, and you're able to make it to this level and be blessed the way I've been blessed, it's always great to give back.
I think my parents are the first influence on me music-wise. My dad was into Motown and soul, and my mom was into British '80s pop, like The Trashcan Sinatras. I grew up on that. It was great. They were the first people to really bring music into my life.
I really truly love all styles of music. A lot of people say that, but the first station they turn to when they get in the car is a rock station. I don't always do that. I really enjoy everything. But, of course, I'm a rock shred guitar player first.
I'm always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician: I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don't think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing.
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.
You go back to my town, it's like going back to the 1960s... just not a great place to grow up.
When I came to the States, I still wanted to be an electric guitar player. But moved to Santa Fe in '86. And just decided that nylon string guitar is really what I wanted to do... And that really change my life totally as well... And Santa Fe is one of those really unusual places that is such an interesting mix of culture. There is a lot of from restaurants to music... I remember one of the first groups I saw playing there in the back of a restaurant, was a banjo player, a classical violinist, and a flamenco guitarist. And I thought to myself, "What? You know, this is great."
Yeah, Jody [Porter] left. He's a great guitar player. We have a guy named Phil Hurley who is going to go out on tour with us now. I'm not sure if he'll end up as the permanent guitar player, but he's the type of guy who can kind of step in and play anything. He was with the Gigolo Ants before, and he's really good.
If my songs are being listened to between any other songs, that is awesome, and I'm glad people are getting something out of them. We go to countries like Germany, where I can't imagine that all of my fans are engaging with the lyrics first and foremost. I think they're catching a vibe, a feeling. I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back and telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.
My dad was a musician, played on the road and played all of his life. And I grew up in a musical family. I heard it all. I mean, I got accustomed to listening to Roy Acuff and all the old guys. It was really cool for me growing up in a family like that.
I'm really eager to go back and do some theater. I would love to do some more comedy as well because I think that's really the hardest thing to do; it's what I grew up doing, and I would love to go back and do that. I did a lot of theater growing up - musical theater.
It's funny, I guess when I was growing up, I didn't really think about being an instrumentalist, per se. I didn't think, well, I want to be a piano player, or, I want to be a guitar player, or even, I want to be a singer. I just wanted to be a musician.
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