Musician Quotes

I still like to keep tapes of the few minutes before the final take, things that happen before the session. Maybe it's superstitious, but I believe if I had done things differently - if I had walked around the studio or gone out - it wouldn't have turned out that way.

I like surfers. Their imagery, it's great.

I got that idea from being in India. I always like the chanting.

I don't think England is that gray but India is like a long drone.

At one time they've been the most important thing to me. So I can't hear our records on the radio, I can't stand it, because they sound so out of what everyone else is doing.

I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.

What I try to do probably doesn't come out. What I've worked out what I do - I might not be right - is to do something very personal, and then suddenly I look at it, up in the air. I blow it up and look at it and then I come down again - a better man.

Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.

You can always improve on something, the technology is different today, but I would leave it well alone. If there was something that was incomplete, that might be interesting... because I do that on my website.

Working with the Kinks, there always seemed to be some kind of automatic process at work. Ray and I had this telepathy happening for a long time, where one of us always knew what the other could do with something.

What I believe in touches many aspects of religious and spiritual thought. Mainly I'm influenced and inspired by the eastern yogi's aspect of mysticism, Which is, I think, the future.

Ray is very secretive about his ideas - why not, the times that the Kinks have been ripped off, especially in the early years, it makes you a little bit cautious about telling anybody what you're doing. And that's understandable.

People that have had genuine abduction experiences that I've met that seem very genuine to me, but they're just confused about why it happened. I've met a lot of people like which I regard as being very genuine... but there's a lot of crazy people out there.

My perspective is that you should be IN the world, but not OF the world.

I think that things happen for a reason.

I think people are turning inward more now cause the world's got in such a weird, crazy state. I think its making people think more about their life and what it is really that they are doing. And how do we interact with a world that's going crazy? It's a very important time.

I love playing live now more than ever. I enjoy it, I think it keeps you young.

I don't like people telling me what to do, or trying to MAKE me write songs.

Good rock music always tends to be around.

Even if we are dead we help each other in some little way.

A lot of people that embark on spiritual endeavors tended to, especially in the '60s and '70s, they tended to give up what they had before and cut themselves off from their lives, previous life as it were. But, I don't think that one should do that.

I think there's been a big problem between religion, or organized religion, and spirituality.

We obviously need more love in the world. And we obviously need more compassion and understanding. Our leaders need to really address these issues properly now.

I think that what went wrong with religion is the same thing that went wrong with politics. Is that it became too money based and too controlling. It's just a weakness that we human beings have for control - we want one thing and then we want more and then we want more.

The talent is always there and art is cyclical. I'm optimistic.

Rap culture is interesting and different and has purpose but it has a non-romantic view of life and of social feelings. There may be a void in that.

Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven't gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course, everyone wants to own copyrights.

One thing a lyricist must learn is not to fall in love with his own lines. Once you learn that, you can walk away from the lyric and look at it with a reasonable degree of objectivity.

It's not just a revue where one song is done, then another. There are concepts and ideas at work.

In writing, I search for believability, simplicity and emotional impact.