It's always about the music, never about anything else.
Interpretation
The essence of creative expression lies solely in the music itself, not on external factors.
Eddie Van Halen's quote emphasizes that the core value of music is found within its creation and experience. It suggests that music should be appreciated for its artistic qualities and emotional resonance, rather than being overshadowed by commercial success, fame, or any other distractions that detract from its true essence.
In practice
In a speech at a music festival, one might say, 'As Eddie Van Halen observed, it's always about the music, never about anything else.'
When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't force myself. I don't sit down and say I've got to practice.
Music is for people. The word 'pop' is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I'm just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I'm cool.
There's a plaque on our wall that says we've sold over 65 million albums, and I don't feel I've accomplished anything. I feel like I'm just getting started.
And if I would have taken lessons I probably wouldn't have done it, and what forced me to do all this weird stuff on the guitar was I couldn't afford effects pedals, I didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid so I just tried to squeeze all the weird noises I could out of the guitar, which brings me to building guitars.
If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you'll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you'll get to where you want to be.
Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.
Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.
When I watch a movie, someone's beauty isn't what engages me: it's what's going on internally. And I imagine it's what the audience thinks, too.
Everything that I had done creatively related to two or three incidents that happened to me when I was a child that I'd forgotten. Everything, absolutely everything.
If your depiction of loss doesn't make the reader feel loss, then you didn't depict it right.
As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential.
Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.
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