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I can't even speak Hawaiian, but if you go there and listen to a Hawaiian song, you get captured because it's so beautiful, like the melody is just gorgeous and you know Bob Marley is on the radio every single day. It's very reggae-influenced down there. Basically, you haven't been to paradise if you haven't been to Hawaii.
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Music is not math. It's science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.
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You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that's what you're gonna get!
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I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'
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'Doo-wop' is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.
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My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you'll see you had to be sharp onstage.
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I don't ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, 'It sounds good!' It's got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.
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Hawaii is paradise. It sounds cheesy to say it, but there's music in the air there.
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Hawaiian music is beautiful and simple.
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My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.
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No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.
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I don't try and be dark, but there are obviously darker emotions that I want to capture sometimes.
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I don't throw lavish parties or nothing like that - I just want a bed and a TV.
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Songwriters, you have to work - you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song's going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.
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I tend to overthink things. I'm not the guy who screams 'This is a world smash!' when I finish a song.
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I don't like two stories. I like one story. I never grew up with stairs. I like to stick to what I know.
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I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There's no tricks. It's honesty with big melodies.
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I feel, as a songwriter, it's one of the hardest things to do - to sit down and say how you feel.
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I've learned people are watching, so don't do nothing stupid.