I play piano every day. I enjoy that.

‚Nothin‘ on You‘ by B.o.B was the first song where I heard myself on the radio. I’d been trying my whole career to write a song like that, which incorporates live instruments with hip-hop and singing.

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

You go to a festival, you know you’re not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I’ve made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.

Nothing feels better than going onstage and everybody is singing every word – and actually wanting to see you.

I would love to get Rihanna on a Khaled song. That’s my friend, but every time I’m around her, I get shy.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

I do like Burial; he’s so curiously clumsy, you can’t help but be moved. It’s so un-Hollywood, and the rhythms are so un-danceable.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

It’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.

If you like it you should enjoy it! Moderation in everything. If there’s things you really love, you should enjoy. You get one life, so you should enjoy it.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn’t want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. ‚Discreet Music‘ was like that, and ‚Music for Airports.‘ What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

‚Thursday‘ is a conceptual album. Whatever that situation was, I spent the whole album focusing on that situation.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

I’m such an emotional and sensitive person, so it only makes sense that my songs are as well.

I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.

That thing about being an icon, the fifth Beatle, I just found it so freaky.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

The only frustrating thing about jail is that I can’t make music.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

A chorus is not easy.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

I was 14, and I fell in love with Pink Floyd.

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I love Chris Brown. He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best singers out there.

I can write a song in about an hour if it’s a simple country song.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

Rap was my drug.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

My body is damaged from music in two ways. I have a red irritation in my stomach. It’s psychosomatic, caused by all the anger and the screaming. I have scoliosis, where the curvature of your spine is bent, and the weight of my guitar has made it worse. I’m always in pain, and that adds to the anger in our music.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

My whole life, I’ve sung and listened to music, and since the beginning, I’ve had iTunes and used Apple Music for streaming.