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.
Interpretation
Music is made for everyone, and its popularity reflects that connection with people.
Eddie Van Halen emphasizes the accessibility of music and its role in expressing shared human experiences. He humbly acknowledges himself as an ordinary person whose creativity is fueled by passion, highlighting that the essence of being a musician is rooted in connecting with others through popular music.
In practice
In a speech at a music festival emphasizing the importance of connection in music.
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.
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.
It's always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you're the same, and they hate you if you're different.
I didn't know I was a zombie pedant until I started considering what from the zombie canon to keep in 'Zone One' and what to ignore.
If one means by style the voice, the irreducible and always recognizable and alive thing, then of course style is really everything.
Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.
You don't go out and play Beethoven's 'Opus 111' without having rethought about it every time you play.
I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.
Artists love other artists. Shadow artists are gravitating to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright. Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist-hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch.
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