China Crisis Quotes
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The perfect day for me is waking up and having a cup of tea with my kids before I drive them to school; Then, I go into the studio and try and write some music for three or four hours and give up about noon.
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Given a choice between Charlie Mingus and Eric Dolphy or Joe Strummer and Lou Reed, there was no choice. I like Reed and Strummer, but it's kiddie music.
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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.
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We are constantly competing with the monsters from the id.
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When you're collaborating with somebody, there has to be a spirit of cooperation. There are a lot of times when you just can't persuade someone to write a certain type of song, either musically or lyrically.
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I'm a self-taught musician aside from what I've been able to pick up from other players.
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I'm glad we turned into a big-time touring band later in life. In fact, it's almost like we planned it out that way.
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I think every time, before we do an album, we have a discussion where we sort of consider the idea of doing something radically different.
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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.
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The more of what our music does violates the premise of its format that it's presented in, the better. So, hearing our music in the supermarket, a Muzak version, is great.
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It's great fun to play with a really good band.
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When the first album came out and I heard 'Do It Again' on the radio, that was the greatest thing that had ever happened. After that, it was all downhill.
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There's a great freedom in writing by yourself. You can write anything you want.
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'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.
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It's good - it's great when somebody who is 20 years younger than you comes up and says, 'Wow, we just got turned on to you guys, and you're really great,' or something like that. I like that.
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We fly to the town in the little private airplane, and then we have to get in cars and drive to the hotel and then drive to the gig. So, I want to do a tour where the performances will actually be at the small airports.
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It's a mystery to me why everybody doesn't love jazz. I've never been able to figure that out.
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We try to write things that work on a variety of levels at the same time: A sleek exterior with a turbulent lyric.
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When you start to work with someone, there's a negotiation that takes place involving what's going to happen when you have a difference of opinion. Most attempts at collaboration never survive the negotiation. Merely being agreeable is not enough.
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Originally, we had a band known as Steely Dan. As we moved away from the band, we got whoever was appropriate for specific tunes. In a lot of cases, we gravitated toward jazz players who had more sophisticated harmonic concepts.
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You can't always count on the devices, attitudes, and conceits that stood you in good stead in 1972 or 1973, or 1978-79, to still have the same impact all these years later.
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I think that there's the self-imposed pressure to come up with something that's good. For guys like us, that's much more important than any external pressure could really be.
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If any artist abuses his audience as a means to any end, noble or ignoble, he better have a damn good reason for it.
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There was a time in my life when one aspect of my lifestyle called for watching a lot of television.