Rock music is being systematically merged with fashion.
— Walter Becker
Singing, for me, means singing as loud as I can.
It's interesting how some songs really lend themselves to performance in a big public venue and performance by a band and so on, and so they're even more successful in that context than they were on the record.
We have been fortunate enough to do something that has always been out of the mainstream and yet have an audience for what we do.
I always look for the weirdest note to land on. I felt that that was the least I could do for the great musical traditions which I've spawned.
That's sort of what we wanted to do: conquer from the margins, sort of find our place in the middle based on the fact that we were creatures of the margin and of alienation.
'8 Miles to Pancake Day' is a reconciliation of the classic space-time dilemma.
'Deacon Blues' was special for me. It's the only time I remember mixing a record all day and, when the mix was done, feeling like I wanted to hear it over and over again. It was the comprehensive sound of the thing: the song itself, its character, the way the instruments sounded, and the way Tom Scott's tight horn arrangement fit in.
I'm a self-taught musician aside from what I've been able to pick up from other players.
I think what television and video games do is reminiscent of drug addiction. There's a measure of reinforcement and a behavioural loop.
I learned a lot from the various artists I produced. Either you see them doing something that you do want to do it, or you see them doing something the way you don't want to do it.
I can never believe how much time and energy and money and talent and everything else is being poured into horrible ideas.
All our wives are experimental psychologists.
I have a feeling there were many, many successful rock duos that just didn't get attention. That's the fault of the rock press. They are always playing up controversy, scandal, aggravation, and irritation.
Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could be, much, much better than they are.
It seemed like the more complex the music we were playing, the less able we were to guarantee its consistency.
The protagonist in 'Deacon Blues' is a triple-L loser - an L-L-L Loser. It's not so much about a guy who achieves his dream but about a broken dream of a broken man living a broken life.
I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends.
We are constantly competing with the monsters from the id.
Most of the time when people say something sounds like Steely Dan, and I listen to it, it doesn't. And I'm not even sure what they're talking about.
There are some things that I write that I know are personal in a way, or the gag is so obscure that it's just for me, and there's other things that could basically be for anybody or be anything, at least until the lyrics start to get written.
If there's a strange way to do something, I would certainly like to know about it. I feel that I owe that to my public.
From a linguistic point of view, you can't really take much objection to the notion that a show is a show is a show.
You have a kid, and it's like, 'He's gotta go to college! Gotta have some clothes!'
There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does it have to have any specific words?' And they said, 'No, it just has to be about FM radio.' It took a day or two to write.
My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians.
