As a solo artist, I just felt cemented in front of the mike stand. There was very little time to play with the audience and be a band member.
— Tommy Shaw
I soon gave up instruction for self-teaching.
When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.
I wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not.
Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.
I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.
When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.
On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.
If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write.
Les Pauls work out real well for me because I'll beat the hell out of them and they'll still work. The only trouble with them is finding good ones.
Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.
It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords.
By the time I did that third solo album, I'd finally learned how to do it, but I'd also learned that I liked being in a band.
Timing is everything.
I love the idea of stepping out of the band situation into a solo world with no boundaries, no expectations, where nothing is out of bounds.
When it stops being fun, stop.
It is all about being open and paying attention to the music in your head. I think most people have original music playing in their heads from time to time.
I don't write on tour. There is so much to do day in and day out when you are on the road.
I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there.
If music became extinct now, I don't know what I'd be good for.
Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already.
I've always stuck with Gibsons. I've had Guilds and Fenders, too, but I always wind up going back to Gibsons.
We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.
When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing.
We're kind of defined by our mistakes.
Make sure you know what you are signing when you sign a recording contract.
Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.
I feel like I have the greatest life an artist could dream of.
I have always been a sucker for the big, upbeat chorus.
I don't like looking back.
I'd better be on the road, or I'll be going nuts. I'm not the kind of guy who sits around with a pipe and slippers watching soap operas.
I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about.
I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.
You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day.
There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them.
When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.
