With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues.
To me, rockabilly music paralleled punk's energy and feeling, but the players were much better.
I guess my favorite artists are The White Stripes or Tom Waits. The more theatrical the music is, the more I get into it. I also like the quieter folk music, that kind of old-school rockabilly or country. I'm not really picky when it comes to music, as long as it's honest.
I got into the soul music, but I wanted to rock. I was a rocker.
The punk rockers said, 'Learn three chords and form a band.' And we thought, 'Why learn any chords?' We wanted to make music like Ford made cars on the industrial belt. Industrial music for industrial people.
Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music.
I want people to focus on listening, not the image. And I want to play to everyone: rednecks, dubstep kids, punk rockers, and people who like as-real-as-it-gets country music.
I started making music that I loved and was passionate and excited about, but it was really cool when I started touring to realize it's an extremely diverse group of people who come out. In the front row, I'll have everyone from a little girl in a frilly tutu, to rockers and gamers and older couples. I love it that it's just everybody.
In music, you ain't really got to be able to sing. In comedy, you may be cute, you may be able to add a little extra to your routine, but if you're not funny, no one's really rocking with you - and if you're a black woman, you better be hilarious. As usual, we always have to do the most.
The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar... whatever it is.
Being a New Yorker, I used to dance to Latin music. There was a place called the Palladium on Broadway. And Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez used to play. So I still have that in my blood.
You have the sun, you have the moon, you have the air that you breathe - and you have the Rolling Stones!
I saw 'Rolling Stone' magazine once, and they were talking about the top 50 songs, and there wasn't one Sly song; how does that happen? But, Sly isn't the type to brown nose for props. He's always known what he had, what he was capable of; I'm just proud that he took the time and effort to put it to music.
The Rolling Stones... The Rolling Stones have a reflection to my music; I wouldn't deny it. I think that's honest.
Sometimes I look at music as like movies. And so I feel like you can have your comedies, and you can have your dramas, and you can have your romances or whatever.
I've had fun doing romantic comedies, but I just can't anymore. There's nothing fulfilling creatively, there's nowhere to grow, nothing to learn from it or for yourself. I'd rather just be home with my family or write music until that special project comes my way.
Music, for me, is as important as fashion. The first visuals I remember are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, New Romantics, and different punk bands.
Deep down, classical Romantic music is what I love: Brahms, Tchaikovsky, the Romantics.
That's my goal: to get the world to know who Romeo Santos is. His music. My music. Even if they don't like it, I want them to know who I am.
Everybody's family plays them music, and my grandma used to play a lot of old-school stuff, like Ron Isley and Gladys Knight. Earth, Wind & Fire is the one I started paying attention to. My uncle introduced me to R&B, like Dru Hill, 112 and all those dudes.
