Tommy Shaw's Quotes

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.

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.

When it stops being fun, stop.

When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.

You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day.

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.

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.

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.

I feel like I have the greatest life an artist could dream of.

I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not.

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.