Tommy Shaw Quotes
"Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Balance, Weight)
"Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Success, Creativity)
"There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them."
- Tommy Shaw
"Timing is everything."
- Tommy Shaw
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Music, Popular)
"We're kind of defined by our mistakes."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Mistakes)
"When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Song)
"When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Singing, Thinking)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Guitar, Key, Reason)
"When it stops being fun, stop."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Being, Fun)
"Make sure you know what you are signing when you sign a recording contract."
- Tommy Shaw
"You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Day, Fun, Thinking)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Sister, 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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Music, Church, First, Singing, Television)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Sound)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Time, Artist, Play)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Time, Being)
"I don't like looking back."
- Tommy Shaw
"I don't write on tour. There is so much to do day in and day out when you are on the road."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Day, Road)
"I feel like I have the greatest life an artist could dream of."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Life, Dream, Artist)
"I have always been a sucker for the big, upbeat chorus."
- Tommy Shaw
"I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Being, Living, Road)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Mind, Thinking)
"I soon gave up instruction for self-teaching."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Self)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Song)
"I wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Life, Songs)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Road)
"I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Guitar, Play)
"I've always stuck with Gibsons. I've had Guilds and Fenders, too, but I always wind up going back to Gibsons."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Wind)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Idea, Machine)
"If music became extinct now, I don't know what I'd be good for."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Music, Now)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Music, Time, People, Attention, Being, Open)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Time, Fun, Trying, Want)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Work, Hell, Trouble)
"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."
- Tommy Shaw
(Related: Love, Idea, Expectations, Nothing, World)