I've always felt that where Priest has been able to get to, it's been down to discipline, our real love and commitment to making the best music that we can make, and never forgetting our fan base.
When I was little and I was introduced to Led Zeppelin, I didn't know what a zeppelin was or who Zeppelin was or what the machine was. The real meaning is whatever feelings and memories you attach to the music.
Dance was something I'd just done at my youth club, and I used to teach dance when I was 14 to 19, 20 years old. I had my own dance group, and then I got more into the acting stuff, and I started doing things for TV. And then I put that on pause, because I really wanted to focus on my real passion, which is music.
If you took music out of my life, I don't know what I'd do. It's the one thing that I have a real passion for.
I don't mind playing my music live. It's fun. But what my real passion is is writing music.
Some music comes from a real place; some music comes from your imagination. It's difficult to find out what's real and what's not, especially with the gangster stuff.
There was this hip-hop collective called People Crew. And at the time in Korea, there was no real place to access rap music. So People Crew used to host this summer school program, which taught rapping and dancing. I begged my mom to attend that school to learn how to rap.
All my music is autobiographical, and that's the reason why people like my music. They know when I'm saying something on a song, I mean it. It comes from a real place and captures the realness in my life.
I tend to not listen to my own music when I'm not working on it. No real reason other than it's nice to get away from it.
As humans, we have the tendency to call on God only when we think that we're in dire straits as opposed to cultivating a real relationship with Him every day. And that's what my music tries to convey to all the listeners - try to cultivate it every day.
When you're trying to bring the streets into rap to prove a point, then you already lost. You separate the two, and that ain't to be played with. You've got people that lost their lives and people that are doing real time. If we gon' make music, let's just make music.
Country and western is the music of the devil. That's the real truth of the matter. My late Mother, bless her, loved country and western. God, I couldn't handle it.
Realistically, English is a universal language; it's the number one language for music and for communicating with the rest of the world.
Being a recording artist, selling music, selling concerts out, having a reality show, starting film; it's great, it's beautiful.
I like physically-demanding reality shows, not dance and music shows.
That's one thing I can't lose: I can't lose the realness in my music.
Not even the creators of 'Rock Band' could possibly believe that playing the game is tantamount to making your own music. There is, however, a sad similarity between 'Rock Band' and some actual bands, and that is the attempt at realness.
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
My music is my way to rearrange the world according to my own hopes.
I guess I have sort of an atypical relationship with my mom for someone my age, because I think I started so young with the music thing and I had my parents always on the road with me. So at a time when I think I should have been rebelling, like in high school, they were actually my best friends.
