There was always music in my house when I was a kid. On Saturday mornings, my mother would clean house to 45s blaring out the songs of Neil Diamond, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens, Harry Chapin.
I was pretty strict in high school about who I would listen to. Musicians like Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell... who were, in my opinion, great writers. The music mattered, but it held hands with the lyrics, and the personality was, overall, unsullied.
Cat Stevens' music, voice, and energy made me feel so secure. He sounded different from some of the paternal figures in my life, so gentle and kind.
There's such a currency to Led Zeppelin, or the members of Led Zeppelin. If I put it to you this way, on the run-up to the O2 concert, the only music that we played was music of Led Zeppelin - the past catalog stuff; that's what we played on the way towards shaping up the set list for that. But we played really, really well.
I don't know how old I was when I first started going to shows, maybe 14 or 15, but very quickly, I discovered Dischord Records in D.C. and loved all the music on that catalog. I was a big Rites of Spring fan, Minor Threat, of course.
I want to record many albums, have a healthy record label with talented artists, keep building my publishing catalogue, and maintain our culture with good music that will be remembered for years to come.
Then about 12 years ago it dawned on me that folk music - the music of Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs, early Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger - could be as heavy as anything that comes through a Marshall stack. The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue.
If it wasn't for Kenny Rogers, I don't think I would be in country music. He was that guy when I was a kid - his music and 'Hee Haw' made me perk my ears up and made me say, 'What is this? I want to hear more of that.' He was that catalyst for me to start this whole run in country music.
And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.
I like to always do my best to make music catchy, so I think a very catchy melody is cool.
I like to have songs with me that have substance. That's missing from a lot of today's music. You might hear a song with a catchy beat, but what's it about? It's not empowering or helping anyone.
No one does cool, catchy pop music like Robyn, and 'Hang With Me' is a testament to that.
I loved pop music as a little kid. Things like the Black Eyed Peas. If it had a catchy chorus, I was into it.
Even when I wrote death metal songs for a death metal record, I was always trying to do my best to make it as catchy as possible because that's how I like music.
I prefer catchy, passionate, temperamental music. And as an upside of that, Ghost's repertoire has, over the years, been piqued by a few, sort of, hits.
From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony.
I just want people to listen to the music and get something from it, whatever it may be. Whether it's a catchy lyric or a whole situation.
I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.
For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.
If you think of a solo artist, you normally know them by their name; you don't normally describe their kind of music. You just say, 'It's so and so, or it's so and so.' But with bands, everyone feels an obligation to categorize them.
