When I get in a bad mood about anything, I realize, 'Hey, I'm still working. It could always be a lot worse.'
My friendship with The Doobie Brothers never really changed. We're all still good friends, and I really admire those guys a lot.
I like to celebrate the holiday season - not so much in a religious way, per se, but in a unifying way.
Brian Owens is a young guy from Ferguson, Missouri, my hometown, who I don't think emulates me at all, but I really enjoy his particular style. He kind of makes me think of the older school of soul singers like Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye.
I think every ounce of pain in just living always ends up being the best thing that happened to me. It's always a growth period. I learn at the speed of pain.
I'm a big country fan. I remember, as a kid, when Ray Charles did the 'Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music' record. That's one of the reasons I became a country fan.
I could never be grateful enough to the Doobies for the opportunities the organization gave me over the years.
Where I grew up in St. Louis, Saturday was country music day on television. We'd watch the Bill Anderson show, the Willie Nelson show, the Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner show, and always the Grand Ole Opry. My parents were fans of that music, and my friend's parents would pull the TV out and watch those shows on the porch.
When Kanye gets to a point where he can actually put a couple of notes together either vocally or two bars of valid music playing an instrument, then he might have a right to criticize somebody else.
I think that's the one thing we all hope for in this life is we leave something of a legacy, that's meaningful to someone else, when we leave here.
My musical education started before I could see over the dashboard, just listening to the radio and cranking up our favorite songs as they came on.
When I was with the Doobies, the style of music was that we all went over the falls with chord progressions, trying to make things as complex and interconnected as possible.
I was attracted to black music for the same reason that I loved those old Irish ballads. Both were social statements of sorts, and both were indigenous to their respective cultures: Ireland, where my father had grown up, and towns like St. Louis along the Mississippi River, where I was growing up.
Rap is like any other genre: There are the people who are very creative with it and do remarkable things... and then there's that whole quadrant that sounds alike. There's great stuff that's taken the genre to a new level over the years, and 'Regulate' was one of those tracks that was kind of a landmark.
There were certain Ray Charles albums and a couple of early Marvin Gaye records that I used to listen to with a vengeance. That's how you forge a style. It excites you, and you lean toward it almost unconsciously. I was also a Beatles fanatic, but I didn't emulate them the way I did the R&B artists.
I've always felt like the Forrest Gump of the music business. I've been fortunate to work with a lot of great people.
One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, I have to admit, was the Chipmunks' 'Christmas Song.' I remember playing that song over and over.
When I listen to songs, to this day, I listen to the chords and the groove and the melody.
Pat Simmons and I always had a great blend together. We did the background vocals on a Little Feat track called 'Red Streamliner,' and that was great fun. I always really loved the way it turned out.
Since the '60s, we've lived so much in an age of quick fixes that the culture itself has become a quick fix.
