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All Quotes by author - Matisyahu
" As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays. "
Kid
Acting
Beyond
" At a certain point, I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity... to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person, I needed rules - lots of them - or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission. "
Rules
Fall
Good
" Change is an internal thing. Different things happen or transform, and music and art is a documentation of that. "
Music
Things Happen
Art
" Every record I do is a learning process for how I want to do the next one. "
Process
Want
Next
" For me, it's always this constant battle and search when I'm out on stage as to where and when do I really open myself up to the people that are there. How do I let myself feel present in the space, and how do I allow myself to get into the music and interact with the band members. "
Space
People
Myself
" Growing up, the way that I looked was very important to me. I was always trying to impress people, and when I grew my beard there was a certain freedom, a separation, getting past this the way I looked, identify myself as a spiritual seeker. "
Past
Myself
Freedom
" I always had a love of music, from the time I was a little kid, dressing up and singing along with Michael Jackson songs. "
Kid
Singing
Time
" I always knew I was different and that people had opinions about me. I guess I learned as best as I can to shield out a lot and live my life from within. "
My Life
Me
Best
" I did some acting in college. But then everything stopped when I was a junior, in the fall of 2001, when I started becoming religious. Once I became a full-on Hasidic, I stopped everything. I stopped music. I stopped acting. "
Everything
College
Acting
" I don't partake, really, of any of the typical rock-star-lifestyle things you could think of. I try to be responsible when I'm out on the road. I take it pretty seriously, what I'm doing, as something that's good for the world, and my family, and everyone. "
World
Think
Road
" I don't really know if I would consider myself anything in particular. I would say I'm inspired in a Hasidic way, but I certainly don't keep all the customs and rules I once did. "
Way
Inspired
Know
" I don't think you could pull one Bob Marley song that didn't have quotes from the Torah or the Old Testament. "
Torah
Song
Think
" I do what I love, thank God. I get to make music and get inspiration through Judaism. I can see why people might be surprised, because it's not been done before. It's certainly not typical. People are always trying to wrap head their around it. But it's probably simpler than everyone thinks. "
Music
God
Love
" I enjoyed coming home to Crown Heights. There was a certain order to life there. You know, Shabbos, spending time with your family, eating and being in 'shul.' Prayers at nighttime, prayers in the morning. Everyone knows everybody; you walk your kids everywhere. "
Morning
Time
Home
" I feel there's a lot of anti-Israel sentiment in the world and a lot of ignorance about what Israel is and does. But it's not for me to speak on Israel's behalf. "
Feel
Ignorance
World
" I felt a real strong connection and still do with Hanukkah. So it started out by doing concerts on Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights tour, and then, yeah, let's make some Hanukkah songs. Let me make a Hanukkah song that kids can listen to, party to and get the spirituality of it, because it is not just about dreidels and having fun. "
Strong
Having Fun
Doing
" I get on a real serious health kick when I'm on the road, because as a singer, you can't really get sick. If you get sick, your whole instrument stops working. I've done all these different vitamin drinks. I drink coconut water, and I run. I eat food. I juice. "
Water
Sick
Run
" I grew up pretty secular. I went to public school, and all the Jews that I knew, none of them were religious. While probably half of my friends were Jewish, they were all secular Jews. We went to Hebrew school, we knew we were Jewish, but it wasn't a major part of our existence. "
Half
Pretty
School
" I have a whole regimen to my day: my vocal warm-ups, my prayers, my meditations... I pray three times a day. I try to have a real experience praying, not just do it. I really get deep into the idea and really try to get somewhere with it, to have an in-depth understanding of the idea. "
Deep
Day
Experience
" I kind of think that music in general is a sacred thing, and that's what music has kind of always been for me. "
Music
Always
Me
" I'm not an expert in instruments, beat programming, or electronics. For some people it's all about doing it themselves. But for me, it's all about find the people that can help make my vision come true. "
Doing
Vision
True
" In 2004, when I started recording my first CD, I was coming right out of yeshiva. So I had spent two years completely immersed in the Hasidic culture, disconnected completely from the secular world - movies, music, people. "
People
Movies
Culture
" In Judaism, there are a lot of rules - everything from which fingernail you cut first to which side you sleep on in bed, to the way you get dressed in the morning, to actual ideas, like ideas about being chosen people or ideas about female/male and how to interact with people from the opposite sex. "
Ideas
Rules
People
" I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else. "
Moment
Remember
Walking
" Is it possible Hanukkah doesn't inspire folksy songs? Plot lines may be a part. The Christmas story has a lot of material to work with. There's Jesus and his birth, the wise men, their gifts and tons of frankincense. "
Birth
Wise
Story
" I started at home as a kid putting on shows and lip-syncing Michael Jackson for the grown-ups. Then, in musicals and plays in school. At 17, I was performing in coffee shops and in parking lots at Phish shows. At 18, I had a band that played local shows in the Northwest. "
Kid
School
Coffee
" I started out in the Chabad movement, and I started pretty closed up, with the idea of there being that 'this is it.' I bought into that fully. I really explored in depth the Chabad ideology. "
Up
Movement
Pretty
" I still believe there is a lot of truth in Orthodox Judaism, but not the whole truth. Each person has his truth that he has to discover. You don't necessarily have to mold yourself to another idea of who you are. "
Person
You
Yourself
" I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer. "
Always
Band
Think
" I think that listening to music or creating music is a spiritual undertaking, so the process of creating music, you know, involves listening. It involves sensitivity, it involves humility, you know, and then also it's something which is higher than words. "
Humility
Music
Spiritual
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