Mayer Hawthorne Quotes

I didn't appreciate Mick Jagger until I got older, and mainly because of the Mick Jagger swagger. He defined that for the world. He was bold and adventurous with it, too - just the ultimate rock star.

I don't want kids listening to my music thinking it's for their parents. I want them to feel it's theirs.

A lot of people think I live in a soul bubble.

I've always made sure that I tour with bands that people aren't expecting me to tour with.

I think that what happens is that all of my modern influences blend together with the older soul influences and you get Mayer Hawthorne.

I learn the most from trial and error. I learn about what I'd like to be able to do from people like Barbara Mason. Saying I want to sing like Barbara Mason and doing it, it's two very different scenarios.

People will send me tweets or texts, 'Yo, I'm at Red Lobster now and they're playing Mayer Hawthorne,' more of that kind of stuff, which is hilarious.

Drums, bass, guitar, keys, I play a little of each of those.

With any cover, I like to choose songs that affected me strongly already. So it's tough sometimes to take a song that you love so much and put your own spin on it because you get such a strong feeling from the original.

I make soul music for hip-hop heads. It's music I'd want to sample if I were a rapper.

I never have, but I would love to pick R. Kelly's brain.

Music is timeless, so I want to give people shows they'll never forget so that I can do this forever.

Even when I was a hip-hop DJ I always kept it classy. The motto is always 'flashy but classy.' You've got to be original and stand out from the crowd and take some chances. But you've always got to keep it classy.

Man, I have so many names that everybody calls me something different. Some people call me Drew, some people call me Mayer, some people call me Haircut.

I've always been the DJ or the bass player or the drummer, somebody in the background. I don't think anybody who knows me personally would say that I'm particularly shy or introverted, but I'm definitely not like Mr. Attention.

I was a hip-hop head. When I really found my own lane in music, it was hip-hop. I wanted to make hip-hop music. And I did, I made a lot of hip-hop music.

I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.

When you're a soul singer, I'm singing a lot of songs about love and relationships that I think a lot of girls really relate to. For whatever reason, that seems to get 'em excited. The DJ, everyone always says the DJ gets all the chicks, but that's never been my experience.

My singing really seemed to connect with people, and it ended up as my main career, which I love.

It's important that when kids are listening to my music they don't think of it as their parent's music.

I don't think I've ever had more fun doing anything in my life than trading verses with Daryl Hall on 'Private Eyes.' That's as fun as it gets.

James Brown is the perfect example of flashy but classy. Classy doesn't have to mean boring. His gear was flamboyant but without being so over the top. The cape was probably the biggest part of his persona. He looked like Superman.

I really don't care at all what people call me as long as they're listening to the music and talking about it. They can call me a space-jazz flautist. I don't care at all.

Shout out to Daryl Hall. He is the best. One of my true musical heroes. He comes from the Philly area so when it comes to true soul, the guy obviously is the expert.

Barry White, Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield are big influences for me. But I'm also a metal head. I was in a bunch of punk rock bands. The Bee Gees, hip-hop and the Beach Boys are just as much of an influence on me as Smokey.

My dad taught me to play bass. He's a bass player; he still plays in a band in Michigan to this day. He taught me to play bass when I was about 6. I used to just go to band practice with him, and whoever didn't show up for rehearsal that day, I would take their spot.

Gary Numan had a huge influence on both my music and my style. He had his own unique fashion sense - that futuristic space style. It was out there.

I'm a serious student of music, a perfectionist in the studio, and I take the arrangement and production of it very seriously, down to the mixing and mastering even. But at the same time I'm having so much fun with it. I try not to take myself so seriously.

I've been really lucky to have had my fair share of relationships over the years and experiences to draw from. But I would say that I generally am not the one doing the heartbreaking.

Everybody comments that I'm white. I'm surprised I haven't gotten more criticism for it. I'm always expecting any day now it's gonna come. I guess I just attribute the lack of hate to people hearing the music and hearing how much I genuinely love it.