Jonny Lang Quotes

My dad got me a guitar for my 13th birthday and I took lessons from Ted for about three months.

My dad used to play drums in a country band, and my mom is an incredible singer.

My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen.

My faith is probably the most written-about thing on the album, although it's not a real direct gospel message, you know?

My parents had a huge pile of records - vinyl! - that I loved, especially the Motown stuff, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding.

My passion is for playing music and although everyone needs a break sometimes just to keep things interesting and fresh, there's no way I would ever give that up.

Right now I really enjoy writing songs.

Right, yeah, you know, my favorite thing just globally about music is just hopefully I'm able to be, you know, blessing the people in any way that I can.

Some of my influences are black gospel artists so I definitely want to do a soul-gospel type thing.

Sometimes I'll get a burst when I write lyrics, it usually happens in 20 minutes and I'll write the whole song, and that's really the only way it feels comfortable.

The album is about my wife and my faith.

The guitar was kind of more of a featured thing rather than the songs and I'm really happy to kind of have a more concise album as far as it being about the songs and about the vocals more than just guitar.

Usually the music part of it didn't take all that long, so we'd get the song done musically and then we'd wrestle with the lyrics for a while.

Well, I got married about two and a half years ago, and that's been a big change in my life.

Well, If you're gonna ask me to do what Justin Timberlake did to Janet, I'm not gonna do it.

Well, people who are blues purist types are usually the most vocal and the ones that pop up on the websites.

When I began my career, I was constantly referred to as the kid who could play the blues.

When you get just that right audience and just that right sound on stage and you can just sit back and kinda just let it happen and it's not really any work. I love those moments. Nothing can beat that for me.

Who I am musically I hope will just keep changing and changing.

With the style of music that I do, I don't think it's at the top of their agenda to push me into doing any compromising material.

Yeah, but Jesus is the most important thing to me and I want to be bold about it.

Yeah, touring can get rough some times and draining, but I always have to pinch myself and realize that I'm doing what I love.

You know, being able to, in my mind, have a song that you know doesn't really have any loose ends or you know, extra fat in it, so to speak.

And as I got older and played more, people began to forget about my age and took the music more seriously.

Apparently, there's this whole set of disgruntled people but obviously it's not my intention to offend anyone by changing the style of music that I've done.

But I needed to prove to everyone that I was a serious musician.

But it doesn't seem like work to me at all, because I know it's all contributing to what I love doing, and what I've always want to do, so it never seems like a hassle.

Cause I enjoy both, I enjoy recording and playing live, but yeah, the rush of playing live is really something.

During a big rock show, you can flub a few things and nobody will hear it, because it gets buried under everything else.

I always knew I wanted to be a musician.

I definitely have a firm, fixed idea of what compromise is for me.

I didn't just want to put something out that I wasn't satisfied with.

I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but I just always knew that my career would be playing music.

I feel so blessed, and God has been so good to me.

I have way too many songs that have music but don't have lyrics.

I love all kinds of different music.

I moved from Minnesota out to Los Angeles and I thought I was going to hate it out there, but I really like it.

I really enjoy what I do and have been fortunate to pursue basically whatever I'm feeling at the time.

I see a lot of parents now who are really supporting their kids playing music.

I think I've just gotten better at learning how to write a song.

I think in the future I will end up doing a gospel album.

I think it's like everything you do is just a reflection of who you are as an artist.

I think my favorite thing is the mystery of life - it makes you feel that much better about accomplishing something.

I think the people at my record label know I'm a Christian and again, I've been really blessed that I've never had to get into a head-butt war over moral standards or anything like that.

I think you have to know exactly what you want. Whether you want to be a guitar player or a musician, you have to be really focused on it if you really want to do it.

I wanted them to look past my age and just listen to the music.

I wanted to have something that I was proud of and that I knew people would enjoy.

I was really happy to be able to write the majority of the songs on this album and be able to co-produce it and it feels like it's really a part of me, whereas the last couple records you know maybe didn't feel so much a part of me.

I'm glad I didn't know certain things earlier, because then it wouldn't be any fun.

I'm glad I've learned what I've learned when I learned it.

I'm not a fast, stream-of-consciousness lyricist at all - I know some guys who are, and if there is one skill I wish I had, it's that.

I've been in fortunate position of never really having to battle with my record company to do the things I wanted to do in the studio.

I've literally become comfortable with approaching whatever style of music at any time.

I've written a lot of ideas for songs along those lines so I'm getting a more of an idea of what I believe God has got for me - stylistically- for and album like that.

If you get raised up having everything you want and then get put out in the world and try to live your own life, you've never had anything to train you how to live.

It seemed at first that everybody was more concerned with my age.

It's just satisfying for me to be able to write kind of like a finished, nice product.