John Coltrane - I've been listening to the 'Trane again. It blows you away, because I know more now and I hear more now and I had a life that I've lived!
Growing up, I listened to a lot of jazz and blues records - John Coltrane and Etta James. I was also really into Radiohead and the BeeGees.
I was raised on jazz. My father, from the time I was born, used to get up early on Saturdays and Sundays and put on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Kenny Burrell, Sarah Vaughn, John Coltrane - all these great, classic albums.
Listen to John Coltrane. When he plays 'A Love Supreme,' that guy is totally into himself.
I don't think we listened to any rock n' roll at all in the early days. It was Miles Davis and John Coltrane 95% of the time.
See, we started out with a foundation of blues. But then we added people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane to the mix and gave rock n' roll a much more complex structure. It made it possible to play more than three chords.
I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.
The people I really admire, like William Blake and John Coltrane and Richard Wagner, had these ridiculously full universes that took their entire lives to describe.
I'm influenced by Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelly, Roland Kirk, John Coltrane, B.B. King, and then by bluegrass. But when I was 16, bluegrass wasn't cool. We was rock n' rollers then: Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis.
I listened to King Oliver and I listened to Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp... I listened to everything I could that came from that place that they call the blues but, in formality, isn't necessarily the blues.
