It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.
Chris CornellRead
Soundgarden signing to a major, then Mother Love Bone, and seeing the same happen to Alice in Chains. We were all suddenly making music and recording at the same time, and we had money to do it. It wasn't like a $2,000 recording that you do over a weekend. It's like, 'Wow, maybe this will be our job.'
Interpretation
This quote reflects the excitement and optimism of musicians experiencing newfound opportunities and recognition.
Chris Cornell describes a pivotal moment for several grunge bands as they transitioned from struggling artists to gaining major record label attention. The realization that they could record professionally and possibly make music their career filled them with a sense of hope and potential for success, marking a significant shift in the music landscape of that era.
In practice
This quote can inspire young musicians at a workshop about the music industry.
It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.
To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.
When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.
Being solo really lends itself to different interpretations - and everything is in the moment and on a whim. I never realised how far out you can go when you are by yourself.
A true musician, like Johnny Cash, should be able to walk into a room with nothing but an instrument and capture people's attention for two hours.
There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.
If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
The thing is with hip-hop, it has its waves and the waves crash against the beach and the new waves come in. So to stay relevant you have to roll with that.
It's a gift, and a blessing, just to have a voice. And I'm proud that people do appreciate it, you know?
When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'
The one thing I do have is good ears. I don't mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.
Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, 'Oh, baby,' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool.
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