My mom always told me I should have a Plan B. I said that if I’m not going to play guitar I’m going to play drums. And if I’m not going to play drums, I’m going to play bass. I always just wanted to play music. I was completely obsessed.
In World War II, jazz absolutely was the music of freedom, and then in the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, same thing. It was all underground, but they needed the food of freedom that jazz offered.
They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.
Making music has always made me happy. When I go through a situation, the best way for me to get over it is to bundle up all of my emotions about it, put it in a little shell, create something, and then let it go.
My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.
Someone who knows only music, understands nothing about it.
I think there’s enough room in country music for everybody.
I have been able to tap into all the negative things that can happen to me throughout my life by numbing myself to the pain so to speak and kind of being able to vent it through my music.
People like Frank Zappa and Bryan Ferry knew we could pick and choose from the history of music, stick things together looking for friction and energy. They were more like playwrights; they invented characters and wrote a life around them.
There are no rules. And there are no boundaries in terms of where your imagination can take you. That is so necessary for music.
I think listening to real classic soul material made me learn how to feel music that’s sung.
With sad music, or music that’s perceived as sad, there’s a sense of solidarity that can be really powerful. My songs are all joyful to me.
Generation after generation, there is this never-ending, contemptuous, condescending attitude to the next generation or the next way of thinking: music, art, politics, whatever. And I have never been like that.
Love is a friendship set to music.
I don’t like rap music at all. I don’t think it’s music. It’s just a beat and rapping.
Music is my shining light, my favorite thing in the world. T get me to stop doing it for one second would be difficult!
People do dismiss ambient music, don’t they? They call it ‘easy listening,’ as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.
Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy.
The whole point of an album is to understand the artist and enjoy the music – it’s supposed to make you want to go to a concert to see them in the flesh and get the album on vinyl and be a part of everything. That’s what I’m about.
The key to longevity is to learn every aspect of music that you can.
I’m very into Taylor Swift. From her music to her wardrobe, she is absolutely killing it. Also, she has adorable cats that I would love to pet.
I love classical. I have a lot of, like, Bach and Mozart and stuff. Then you flip on over, and I’ve got, like, Kanye West and, you know, just a bunch of – I am very eclectic. I love every sort of music.
Sound is more than just noise. Ordered sound is music. My life is music.
Because of things like iTunes and streaming and social networking, it’s destroyed music. It’s destroyed the motivation to go out there and really make the best record possible. It’s a shame.
For a decade, Emma-Lee Moss has been steadily making weird, moody, melancholic music under the moniker ‘Emmy the Great’ that has been referred to as nue-folk, anti-folk, synthpop, and, most of all, literary.
