In the game, you've got some people who've got money, but their music is kind of off, their music is garbage. Then, you have people with good music, but they ain't got the biggest part: They ain't got the funds. But me, I'm just all the way around the board.
I'd say the key thing is to remain true to what originally got you into music. When I wrote 'Hallelujah,' it ignited me to do music because of the love and joy that I got from writing that song. Down the road, you get all of these opinions from people; just remember what got you started in the first place.
I wanted to resign from the planet, not just music. It stopped being fun with success. Money got in the way. Everybody got greedy, including me. Fear set in. I got miserable when I became a commodity.
The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.
You've got the Wall Street situation, the sub-prime situation. You've got a black president. We've got wars. We've got unemployment. But the music doesn't reflect that. And I challenge anybody to show me a music that's on the radio that reflects that.
If I ever really felt depressed, I would just start putting on all my old records that I played as a kid, because the whole thing that really lifted me then still lifted me during those other times. It was good medicine for me, and it still does that for me when I put something on. Isn't it wonderful that we've got all that good medicine? I think it's got to be all part of our DNA, this mass communication through music. That's what it is. It's got to be, hasn't it? Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. It hasn't let me down.
I studied music all the way through college, but as soon as I graduated from university, I got straight into London and got straight into film music. So really my experiences have been being around the orchestras in London and being around the people who work in film music.
I'm from Louisiana, and that's where I got my start, in Cajun music. There's a huge music scene down there centered around our culture. Those are people that are not making music for a living. They are making music for the fun of it. And I think that's the best way I could have been introduced to music.
You've got to want to put out good music. You've got to give the people their money's worth.
Now we have so many different genres of music, it's amazing to me. Even in the gospel music arena, you've got hip-hop, you got contemporary, urban contemporary, you got traditional, you got neo-soul gospel, you've got all of these different things.
Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock.
You've got to care about the music...You'd better not be doing it for the publicity, the fame or the money. And you'd sure better not be doing it because it's a way to make a living, 'cause that ain't always going to be easy. You got to believe it, believe in the music. You got to mean it.
Music has become really important now. It's helped me to open up more and take a chance on loving people. Music is a good reason to care. It's just a vehicle though. It's a way to try and give somebody something that you feel. If trying the best I can isn't good enough, I'll just have to try harder next time...it's all I can do. If I do the best I can, then at least I did the best I could in this life The way I like to look at it is....if that's the last time /I ever got to play, I'd better give it everything I've got.
I feel like I have a lot of rhythm because I'm from the DMV. Because you got so many different types of music: Baltimore Club music, Go-Go, then you got the DMV rap music scene, then you got the DMV R&B music scene. It's a lot of music and it's a lot of taste that caters to most.
People ask me if I'm influenced by British music, and I suppose I grew up listening to mostly British music - from new wave stuff through to heavy metal. Like, when I got into metal, it was Black Sabbath. I never really got into a lot of American rock. I appreciate some of it, but not much! Most of the great new wave music was coming out of Britain, and Germany. So maybe those influences have made their way into my music, and perhaps that's why I have this connection with people in Europe. But maybe it's something cosmic.
A lot of people are going to hate me for saying this, but one of my least favorite kinds of music, or the kind of music that I feel I've so got out of my system, is musicals music.
There are different people who got me into music, but what I liked about Beethoven is that even when I didn't understand it or it was too long, there's still something about it that drove me to it. Then it got me excited about actually learning music, like a theory of it.