Musician Quotes

I've always been an outsider; a displaced person.

Depression scares people off. It makes me laugh that it has that kind of effect.

If you suffer from depression, anything that makes you feel has to the most important thing in your life, because it's the only thing that can save you.

This is what I am. I have periods of enormous self-destructive depression, where I go completely off my trolley and lose all sight of reality and reason.

When I play, I very quickly put myself into a light hypnotic trance and compose while playing, drawing directly from the emotions.

Well when I made my first record I thought it would be a good joke to have me on one side, have the lable say John Fahey on one side, and this guy Blind Joe Death on the other side.

Well I was on the one hand, the more I played the guitar the more I began to really love the guitar and to love virtually any kind of music that anybody played well on guitar.

Well folks, that's about it for the show tonight.

The other thing in composition is opening up the unconscious.

So I learnt a few country western songs, I bought a chord book, and right away I started writing my own stuff, which nobody else did that, I don't know why.

See my father knew a lot about music, he played the piano and he would do theory and stuff like that, but I didn't learn anything from him, but I played that for him and he liked it a lot.

Regarding fame, fortune and Oregon I do wish I had more money.

I was using them as teachers for technique but I was never trying to be a folk.

I thought I'd be wasting my time to go to commercial record companies and make demos for them, because don't forget, I was doing what I was doing and nobody understood what I was doing.

I just want to be treated like an average guy.

I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.

I also know that I am not a great technician.

How can I be a folk? I'm from the suburbs you know.

From a social perspective, I am looking for friends, not acolytes.

Early Bluegrass is my favorite kind of music, not to many people know that.

But I say these things in an objective dispassionate manner because, you know, and I can't explain why, but being one of the greatest guitarists in the world simply is not very important to me.

Being worshipped is a horrible experience.

As soon as the groupie finds out that you make errors in everyday life like everybody else does and that you are human, they turn on you and hate you.

As for fame, it can go to your head and you can become full of yourself.

We're not getting any younger.

I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.

I have a critical nature, in the sense that when I look at something I often look for the flaws.

What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?

People are usually afraid to say what's on their mind.

I had trouble distinguishing art from life. I don't now, and I feel much better!