I never really listen to what people say. My thing is that my favorite artists are artists that are theatrical. Obviously when you are doing a recording, things aren't gonna translate as over-the-top.
It does not in the least concern me whether I shall have at the end of my life thirty people who understand or three hundred. I am like an artist who paints a picture because he must, otherwise he is unhappy - not unhappy, but he must obey that creative impulse.
In a genre where most of the artists are one-hit wonders, I've been able to hang around longer than most "serious" acts. I pride myself in being a very talented leech.
There are a lot of people in this world that listen to wide ranges of music and there should never be a CERTAIN type of music that any artist should be confined to, in my opinion.
You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist.
I think most artists feel like they're outside society - no matter how many accolades they receive, or how much money is in your bank account, whatever is going on in your life on the professional side.
I've always sort of marveled at our ability to chat and match, because of, I come, honestly I think of myself of as a little bit of hack, and think like that, and I think of her [Mia Michaels] as an artist.
Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies? Yet just because it has no use, it has a use - which may sound like a paradox, but is not. What, for instance, is the use of playing music? If you play to make money, to outdo some other artist, to be a person of culture, or to improve your mind, you are not really playing - for your mind is not on the music. You don't swing. When you come to think of it, playing or listening to music is a pure luxury, an addiction, a waste of valuable time and money for nothing more than making elaborate patterns of sound.
The habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.
An artist's job is simply to take the mirror in front of your face and hold it there. It's not to give you any answers. It is simply to take that mirror and point it at you.
What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?
The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.