I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base.

When you play music with someone who has a heart rather than playing with someone who is just doing it for money or is cynical it makes all the difference.

I just got a call one day from Ringo asking me if I wanted to go out on the tour. It was as simple as that. He was putting together this band and he heard of me in the context of doing this and he gave me a call. I jumped at the chance.

Unless you go forward then you are going back.

When you are in a band for a number of years you loose your identity in a way. You become a part of that band and then all of a sudden you are not part of that band. You are still the band without the other two members.

I feel with ELP that I wasn't making the most of my life and I wasn't making the most of my creativity. I was marking time. I don't want to do that. Life is to short.

The early ELP albums were pioneering in a way.

Making a comeback is one of the most difficult things to do with dignity.

When we made that album with Gary Moore, I was still kind of searching for the right direction for myself. Although the music is quite good the direction was like a box of fireworks that caught light all at the same time.

As I said to Ringo, I was in a successful Rock N Roll band. He was in a band that changed the world. That's the difference.

Philosophically, what I have learned is to thy own self be true. That is the biggest lesson of all. Relax; music is fun. To many people take it to seriously because of the money involved.

There is no standing still because time is moving forward.

I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base.

The greatest music is made for love, not for money.

I don't think art is a goal orientated business. I don't do things for the challenges, I only do them because I love them, I'm not really a goal orientated, achiever type of person.

Certain things you learn through exposure. It's really the elements which make up any artist. You really learn by example. You learn by influence. And some people have a huge impact on you, and that's how you become the artist you are.

I love touring in the United States. It's dramatically different wherever you go. North to south, you're going from snow to palm trees.

I picked up the guitar at 12 yrs old - basically, my mother and father bought it for me for Christmas. I played one at my friend's house; when I say played it, I just played around with it at my friend's house. It just struck me as something I really wanted.

It's true when they say songwriting is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. In truth, what happens is... songs comes through you.

Most of my career has been about standing on a stage performing music to an audience, and once the show is over, they go home and I go on to the next show.

Music is an emotional experience, and that is what imprints itself on the soul. And I think for me, any great art is art which communicates human emotion.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

Songs are like children. They are all special to me - you can't just pick a favorite. Of course, 'Lucky Man' was a special tune with a wonderful story behind it. They have all done different things.

The less people that are on the stage, there's more drama. You start living the music with each individual. When you see a band with ten people on stage, just a huge ensemble, you don't know who's doing what.

What I learned then was there is a certain power in a three piece band. The more people you put on that stage, the more diluted it becomes.

When I was writing my autobiography, these songs came up from time to time which were important to me, and I realized that what they really represented was, they'd come from this age of shared music.

You often hear people say 'Luck is self made.' I think it is, to a certain extent; if you work hard on something, you are more likely to be lucky than if you don't. That having been said, I do believe during in my career I have been at the right place at the right time with the right people.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.