I put out one album one week, and I'm already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.
I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.
I'm proud of the fact that I'm at a point in my career that if I want to take a little bit of a left turn and make an album that is more hushed, more acoustic and more personal, that I can do it.
We are made of stardust; why not take a few moments to look up at the family album?
It is so important for me to keep authentic Cuban sounds alive. All of these great artists have changed the landscape of Latin music and it's an honor to have them on this album ["90 Millas," released in September of 2007]. I believe this album will expose a new generation to the richness of Cuban music.
I tried acting and all of the arts, I even put out a record album, but what I like the most is business.
A lot of good has come from drugs. I think 'Penny Lane' is worth 10 dead kids. Dark Side of the Moon is worth 100 dead kids. Because a lot of kids wouldn't even be born if it weren't for that album, so it evens out.
The Geezer album, Black Science, had a lot of keyboards and it did not work.
I would make far more money if every song were my own, but I don't write to fill up the album with my songs.
I know six years is a big break. But I never walked away from music. I never released an album because I wanted to do a different album, something I have never done before.
Growing up as a comedian, the first thing you dream of is having your own album, but even more than that, I always wanted that hour special on cable.
I can never tell what's going to end up being on an album until it's all finished. I'm reading the news everyday, and sometimes I just have to be away from it. And that ends up writing the songs for me a little bit.
If the song was upbeat, we'd get out a funky Harry Connick, Jr. album, some Louis Prima big band, or a Bob Wills swing record for inspiration and swing for the fence, hoping to get that 'soundtrack to your life' vibe. And if it was a slow song, we'd go the other way and really make it worshipful.
What I don't do is try to like become whoever I'm rapping with. The people who go get an LL album want to hear LL.
I knew I was destined to do a solo album, but when I did that first album in 1978, I had no idea it was going to be that well received.
In a way, as much as we love to be a big, loud rock band, the acoustic album was a lot easier to make than the rock records. I think because it was brand new territory for the band.
I'm a singer, not a politician, and I think you don't want the two to get confused. It's not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.
If you take your last album & try to copy it, then thats sure to hell the way to stagnation. And that makes me bored. . . and if I'm bored then the music is boring and so are the band!
I have got an anthology album out. The American version has got the same mixes but the European version, I remixed them in the studio and added a couple of things that I have always wanted to add.
When I was a kid, I would go to the record store, where there was a bin of things they didn't know quite how to classify. Those were my choices. That's where you would find Captain Beefheart or an early electronic album.