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" I've sort of decided that I can settle for being just the artist, arranger, writer and part-time engineer. That seems like enough to do. "
Tom Scholz
Artist
I Can
Like
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" I didn't touch a guitar until I was 20. "
Tom Scholz
Guitar
Touch
Until
" I was basically a dork that hit the books and liked to build things and did all of the things that you weren't supposed to do to be popular. But somehow I ended up onstage, playing guitar in front of everybody else. "
Tom Scholz
You
Up
Books
" I don't like the idea of having to reproduce a recorded song live that I sing. I have enough to do on stage. I'm really busy up there, and I'm really busy with everything I have to do for every show. Add having to worry about my voice and singing lead on a song or two, that's not something I necessarily want to do. "
Tom Scholz
Song
Worry
Busy
" Trying to get my music performed live by bar bands was a self defeating experience. It really just distracted me from what I should've been doing all along, writing and recording. "
Tom Scholz
Music
Self
Writing
" I detest computers. If you had a device like that 30 years ago that froze up constantly, misbehaved constantly, lost your information and screwed up when you needed it the most, it would have been laughable. "
Tom Scholz
Lost
Computers
Like
" All Boston songs are fairly difficult to translate to the stage. None of them are especially easy to play or sing. A lot of them, of course, have very involved arrangements with lots of different sounds and sections that are difficult to play and sing. The prospect of doing any Boston song live is always an endeavor in itself. "
Tom Scholz
Boston
Doing
Easy
" Music doesn't have to have lyrics; it doesn't have to be a particular type of music - it has the ability to bring out really strong and hopefully good emotional reactions in people. "
Tom Scholz
Emotional
Music
People
" When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so. "
Tom Scholz
Trying
Challenge
Find
" I'm not one of those artists who doesn't want to play their most popular songs. "
Tom Scholz
Who
Play
Want
" Musical accidents are a gold mine. The thing about accidental discoveries is they won't be made unless you put yourself in a position to make that discovery. To do that means hundreds of hours, days and weeks where you do things and don't discover anything. "
Tom Scholz
You
Yourself
Gold
" The pressure is all self-imposed, and it's to live up to the expectations of people who are going to shell out their hard-earned cash to listen to the music. It's actually more than that, though. I wouldn't want to make a record that didn't live up to my expectations. "
Tom Scholz
Want
Music
Live
" I will say that I know Nirvana did a show and played a few chords from 'More Than a Feeling' before they did 'Teen Spirit,' and it wasn't very good. But in all seriousness, 'Teen Spirit' was a great song. If subconsciously or somehow I had any influence on that, I'll take that as a compliment. "
Tom Scholz
Know
Great
Song
" And sometimes I actually start to think human life is just as cheap to corporate America as animal life, so long as there are big profits to be made. "
Tom Scholz
Big
Think
Start
" Virtually every magazine, newspaper, TV station and cable channel is owned by a big corporation, and they've squashed stories that they don't want the public to know about. "
Tom Scholz
Know
Want
TV
" I'm a total rink rat. I can do the toe loop, the lutz, a flip, and the Scholz. That's one I invented. It's like me - you jump, you rotate in the wrong direction, and you land on the wrong foot. "
Tom Scholz
I Can
Direction
Me
" The problem is that once I start on a song and get a rough idea of where I might go with an arrangement, I try dozens, sometimes hundreds, of different things on a song. The bass, the backing guitars, the lead guitars, the keyboards. It's a long process. It's like 100 steps forward and 99 steps back. "
Tom Scholz
Song
Process
Long
" 'Higher Power' was the result of a personal experience: a friend of mine who went through the process of addiction and recovery. It's a very, very tough thing - very easy to become addicted and very, very hard to become a recovering addict. "
Tom Scholz
Easy
Experience
Power
" I can tell you that I can always recognize a Boston song, even if it's in a noisy place. I can hear that it's Boston even before I know what song it is. If a Boston song comes on in a club or somewhere, I notice that it's Boston, and the second thing I notice is what song it is. "
Tom Scholz
I Can
Song
Place
" People have been convinced that growth for growth's sake is a good thing. "
Tom Scholz
Growth
Been
People
" The public has been sold a bill of goods about the free market being a panacea for mankind. "
Tom Scholz
Free
Market
Been
" The lyrics are always the last thing I do. I always have a recording of basic tracks and maybe some of the lead work. I'll sit back and listen to it, and I'll just concentrate on what kind of feeling it gives me. My goal writing the lyrics is to not disrupt that feeling. "
Tom Scholz
Work
Feeling
Goal
" Someone will say, 'Well, that's good enough.' As soon as I hear 'Good enough,' it really bothers me. I spend as much time as I think I can on anything I do. I try to do that with the people that work with me. I try to get the best out of them. "
Tom Scholz
Good
Work
Best
" The one thing I will say for digital, and you won't hear me say that many complimentary things about it, is that it's cheap. It pretty much enables anybody to record as long as you can deal with the sound. "
Tom Scholz
You
Sound
Say
" Turning corporations loose and letting the profit motive run amok is not a prescription for a more livable world. "
Tom Scholz
More
Loose
Motive
" I know everything that you can do with digital processing and digital editing inside and out, but I absolutely refuse to push the buttons and don't even want to know how to load and unload the files. "
Tom Scholz
Push
Digital
Editing
" I stay very much undercover and behind the scenes - most places I go, people don't know how important I am. But I will admit that my favorite piece of clothing to wear out is an old T-shirt from a Boston tour that does have a Boston logo. But that doesn't change anything. "
Tom Scholz
Important
I Am
Know
" I heard 'More Than A Feeling' for the first time when somebody came running into my office in the engineering department and said, 'Your song's on the radio in the drafting department!' "
Tom Scholz
Feeling
Song
Said
" We need a free media, not just freedom of speech. "
Tom Scholz
Freedom
Free
Freedom Of Speech
" I take chances. I don't limit myself. I don't think anybody who listens to Boston would have predicted hearing a female rapper on the beginning of the song 'Sail Away.' But that's what fit. "
Tom Scholz
Myself
Think
Song
" I can sit down at a piano or with a guitar and just chug away for hours and be perfectly content with whatever comes out. But when it comes to something that somebody else is going to listen to, then I do feel a great deal of pressure to do something that's exceptional, at least in what I consider to be at the limits of what I can do. "
Tom Scholz
Feel
Limits
Guitar