Even if I wasn't in music, even if my father was a carpenter, some guy in Jamaica would go 'You're just like Bob. You're just like your father.' That happens in Jamaica all the time.
I've never been one for doing remixes. Then I've gotta decide which version am I gonna be tonight: country Carrie or pop Carrie? I'd rather just make country music that anybody can get into no matter what they listen to.
I have major respect for Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood and Sugarland. They are wonderful. They're superstars in the music business.
Sometimes it's hard to open up about your personal life, your relationship because you always want the music to be in the forefront. You want the music to be the biggest carrier of everything that you represent.
Even people that know Johnny Cash's music really well and know that he was married don't really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before.
I was influenced when I was younger by the cartoon movies that Disney put out, like Cinderella and what not. I watched those movies over and over when I was younger and the music is ingrained into my head. Nowadays, I'm still humming the tunes. It taught me the fundamentals.
My future plans are hazy, and I've yet to experience how much cartooning is in my blood and therefore how much I'll miss it. But I have some other interests, especially in music, and I will probably take the opportunity to delve into those things more deeply.
Hip hop is usually a bunch of guys talking to a bunch of guys, in my experience. It's homosocial, not homosexual, in that it's almost always all one gender in a room where it's being created. That locker-room environment has an impact on the language. I think the music suffers 'cause it allows an almost cartoonish level of misogyny.
Since I loved underground music, I tried to carve a space for feminism within it. Those were my hopes.
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
Casey Kasem not only played the music of the stars, he also reached the sunniest-sounding celebrity on his very own. Listening to him on the radio, you could hear America smiling.
I used to judge the quality of music by whether I could make a 90-minute cassette and not repeat any artists.
One day, my father brings a cassette. He's showing me this, and he's like, 'Look at this guy, his name is Anthony Santos, like you.' I popped it on and started hearing the songs, the music, and I was like, 'Wow, this sounds great.'
A great song is a great song, whether it's on vinyl or CD or cassette or reel to reel or mp3. Then again, that might be an overly optimistic view, but I do think that great music will transcend the medium in which it is delivered.
When I was a kid, we weren't really supposed to listen to secular music. But one day, I found a 'Led Zeppelin IV' cassette tape in the garage, and it was just amazing-sounding music, not like anything I'd heard before. I remember thinking: 'Well, if God created music, why is his music in church not as good as this?'
My parents are musicians. I was listening to the radio and recording songs off the radio on cassette tapes and playing guitars and pianos. Just emotionally responding to music from a very young age.
The E Street band casts a pretty wide net. Our influences go all the way back to the early primitive garage music, and also, we've had everything in the band from jazz players to Kansas City trumpet players to Nils Lofgren, one of the great rock guitarists in the world.
When it's time to make music, that's about getting lost for me. To be a control freak is not half as good as being a freak who's casually in control. You're feeling around in the dark for something that feels good.
'Cat?' 'Cat' can be anybody from the guy in the gutter to a lawyer, doctor, the biggest man to the lowest man, but if he's in there with a good heart and enjoy the same music together, he's a cat.
My dad was a huge Bob Dylan fan, so we listened to his music, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, and all that kind of stuff.
