The most influential time in my life musically was definitely those piano lessons.
I never got discouraged for long, but we all got our butts kicked musically.
For better or worse, I've always been curious musically. Whether it's opera or Judy Garland or pop, I've deliberately sought those things out. I've never wanted to do the same things over and over. Some think I've accomplished what I set out to do, and others consider me a dilettante.
Musically, I would never run dry. Any time I sit down to an instrument, I could write a song.
I was never really that aware of commercial things. The stuff that was really influential to me were bands like the Misfits or the Birthday Party, or things like that. If someone said, "Do you love Judas Priest?" - I never really even had a Judas Priest record. That's not what I grew up with. That wasn't really my scene, you know? That's why, musically, White Zombie never really fit. I still don't fit.
I was being musically mentored by a lot of people who were obviously more talented and skilled than I was, and I thought that I would just kind of learn the ropes of songwriting there - like how to do acoustic, country-esque songs, which I like because there's so much story in them.
It's how I learned to play guitar - sitting with Led Zeppelin and Cheap Trick records, backing the needle up and learning how to play along. When the band started, by doing something that was very obvious to us and sort of traditional, it set us apart at the time from what was happening musically.
My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.
I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.
The whole slacker generation totally didn't apply to us musically.
I think a lot of what I do musically is about juxtaposition and contrast.
Musicians don't respect a lot of the stuff that is on TRL and a lot of musicians think that stuff on the radio is not good musically so when musicians say that they like us it obviously feels good.
I find that musically, looking back, I have learned much more from those relationships, people I have bumped into that I have admired, that's the way I feel musically I have learned most in life.
The first time I performed musically, I threw up.
I really haven't strayed too far, musically, from my roots
Everybody's slow right now, there's nothing happening musically, everybody's all on cable television and being manipulated by all the television right now, what's on cable telling people what to listen to and stuff.
A concert is a concert is a concert is a concert. An album is an album is an album is an album. Musically, both have nothing in common.
Every day of my life is going out in public and seeing people's lives and listening to stories - all that kind of stuff musically inspires me.
I think when you leave a band in any situation that you are a part of. . I mean, when I was with It Bites I was a quarter of something, and when I was with Robert Plant I was a sixth of some- thing and when you leave you become the whole thing. So just after you spend time realizing what you are, and it just happened that I was doing that in my life as well as musically, it kind of happened at the same time. I was getting to a point in my life where I was beginning to realize who I am, and I like me.
If Carlos and I were books, he'd be a Nietzsche book, and I'd be a Hubert Selby book - totally different mindsets. But musically, it all fell right into place.