Chuck Ragan Quotes

I've always written songs to use music as a form of therapy or as a way to look at my obstacles or my memories from a different perspective. It's always helped me realize the grass isn't always greener and how I need to live more in the moment. My songwriting is a documentation of whatever's happening in my life at that point in time.

We can use music as a tool to overcome things. It was a beautiful age and realization for me, an awakening. I felt like my eyes were opened. It was like, you mean to tell me that I have the opportunity when I'm bottling stuff up, wanting to smash windows and breaking down walls, I can put that energy into a song and wake up the next day with that weight lifted?

It's an opportunity that's there for all of us, like a life raft or preserver to hang onto when there's nothing else or no one else around because man, we're human and no matter what, one way or another, everyone of us in our lives, at some point in time, are going to feel alone.

I can write a song and a thousand people could hear it and there will be countless different reasons why those people get something out of that song. But they're all there for the same reason, which is to enjoy music and to let it help dissolve those problems or those rough days or to give a reason to keep putting the boots on. So to see ideas come to fruition and for someone to get something out of it is a beautiful thing.

On the road, it's constant sensory overload, and it's easy to lose track of days and time and to get caught up in the constant giving of yourself.

You learn new song until you're comfortable with it to where you can record it blindfolded, but then when it comes out on the record, you forget about those little nuances and those little things that you changed during the recording process. It's those spur-of-the-moment things you do that makes it an entirely new beast that you then again have to relearn.

It almost feels like I have the best of both worlds in a sense. I also respect the fact that all of this could be over tomorrow so I do everything I can just to cherish the moments and days and these opportunities I have to share music that I believe in with these people who care about it.

Hat's just a fact of life. So I've taken music into my life and it's gotten into my blood to the point where even when I am alone, I've got something to hang onto.

It's a whole nother aspect of this life that most people have no idea about. There's the loved ones, the wives, the girlfriends, the children. Some of the people out here are fathers and mothers. Whether you mean to or not, you end up neglecting your family in a lot of ways. Even if you do your best to keep in touch, the fact of the matter is that you're physically absent.

People showed me this way of dealing with music, writing songs, thinking about music and shows and our community and the fact that it doesn't have to be about being popular or fashion or making money.

Man, you learn so much just like with anything else. If you do something long enough, you learn. You make mistakes. You run into roadblocks and barriers. You overcome obstacles. You fall down. I mean you have to fall down to learn to stand up.

You're always kind of shifting and changing and it's a really exciting process.

I love what I'm doing here but I hate being away from home. I hate it. I look forward to one day raising a family myself, and I really look forward to children but when that day comes, I don't want to be an absent dad. I'm already an absent husband.

I mean we're all guilty of getting sidetracked or getting taken away from our loved ones. Whether we believe it or not, or care to admit it or not, it's just a product of this lifestyle. That's a big reason why I've always called this the blessing and the curse.

Over the years since then though, I couldn't even begin to try and count all the mistakes I've made but also, all the joys I've found while traveling on the road. So in living this kind of lifestyle day in and day out for that many years you learn. You learn a lot about yourself. You learn a lot about how people should be treated and how they should treat each other. For the most part, I've really learned patience, temperament and fairness all around.

Creating records and writing music with people I admire and respect is a very spiritual and enlightening thing for me.