34 Quotes by Tommy Shaw
- When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.
- Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.
- Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.
- There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them.
- Timing is everything.
- We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.
- We're kind of defined by our mistakes.
- When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.
- When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing.
- On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.
- When it stops being fun, stop.
- Make sure you know what you are signing when you sign a recording contract.
- You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day.
- When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.
- I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.
- Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.
- As a solo artist, I just felt cemented in front of the mike stand. There was very little time to play with the audience and be a band member.
- By the time I did that third solo album, I'd finally learned how to do it, but I'd also learned that I liked being in a band.
- I don't like looking back.
- I don't write on tour. There is so much to do day in and day out when you are on the road.
- I have always been a sucker for the big, upbeat chorus.
- I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there.
- Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already.
- I soon gave up instruction for self-teaching.
- I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about.
- I'd better be on the road, or I'll be going nuts. I'm not the kind of guy who sits around with a pipe and slippers watching soap operas.
- I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.
- I've always stuck with Gibsons. I've had Guilds and Fenders, too, but I always wind up going back to Gibsons.
- If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write.
- If music became extinct now, I don't know what I'd be good for.
- It is all about being open and paying attention to the music in your head. I think most people have original music playing in their heads from time to time.
- It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords.
- Les Pauls work out real well for me because I'll beat the hell out of them and they'll still work. The only trouble with them is finding good ones.
- I love the idea of stepping out of the band situation into a solo world with no boundaries, no expectations, where nothing is out of bounds.
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