I want to be an improviser, and I’ve worked very hard at that. It’s an art. You don’t just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do.
I expect if you’re a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn’t want to go onstage and sing and play drums.
If it’s cross-country ski season, I’ll be out doing that, or snowshoeing up in Quebec. In my California home, I go to the local Y and I like doing yoga. It’s been hugely beneficial to me in injury avoidance.
Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will – all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.
To me, drum soloing is like doing a marathon and solving equations at the same time.
Half the world hates What half the world does every day Half the world waits While half gets on with it anyway.
For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics – I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I’m playing.
A quality of justice A quantity of light A particle of mercy Makes the color of right.
Different hearts beat on different strings.
It’s interesting. I’ve known quite a few good athletes that can’t begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.
Anytime I have an idea, I’ll make sure that I put it down so that when we do sit down to write an album, I don’t have to dream it all out of thin air. I don’t have to be creative on the spur of the moment, or spontaneously artistic. I just take advantage of whenever creativity strikes.
To get nostalgic about other people’s music, or even about your own, makes a terrible statement about the condition of your life and your prospects for the future.
I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose freewill.
Could hell be a place where there is no self-respect? A place where people have no pride in their own existence or behavior, and thus would have none for anyone or anything else?
You can’t get wise with sleep still in your eyes no matter what your dream might be.
Courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence.
Innocence gave me confidence to go up against reality.
Each of us A cell of awareness Imperfect and incomplete Genetic blends With uncertain ends On a fortune hunt that’s far too fleet.
Extroverts never understand introverts, and it was like that in school days. I read recently that all of us can be defined in adult life by the way others perceived us in high school.
If the future’s looking dark, We’re the ones who have to shine. If there’s no one in control, We’re the ones who draw the line. Though we live in trying times, We’re the ones who have to try. And we know that time has wings, So we’re the ones who have to fly.
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path thats clear. I will choose Freewill.