Tom Scholz Quotes

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.

I'm certainly aware of the fans. I'm always hoping that what I'm doing is something they'll like, because I do appreciate them. But, no, when I get into the studio, it's all about what I like. It's the same thing that led me to the possibility of making that first Boston album, which was to divorce myself from all other influences.

Playing live was always definitely a lot more fun. You picture it: working alone in the studio eight or 10 hours a day with nobody else there, being frustrated and driven crazy by all of the things that you have to deal with, vs. thousands of people screaming and singing along with you playing.

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.

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!'

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.

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.

I played in a couple of really crummy bands, including one in the dorm I was in at MIT, for a year or two.

The public has been sold a bill of goods about the free market being a panacea for mankind.

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.

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.

There aren't a lot of cover bands that do Boston material or do it well, and the reason for that is that they are hard to play. So we put a lot of work into it. The musicians that I've managed to surround myself with after all of these years are individuals who really excel at what they do.

Everybody's seen a stream or a wood they knew replaced by a strip mall.

When I first started recording, I was told by all of the experts in the business that the kind of music that I was doing was never going to sell. That disco was the coming thing and it was going to take over and what I was interested in was a minor sideline.

I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them.

I don't plan tours necessarily around records. I know that's what most people do.

I'm one of those artists that doesn't actually hate my old hits. I love Boston music. I really like 'More than a Feeling.' After playing it to myself in a basement for such a long time, I'm happy to do it out on stage.

The studio work is the nasty, tedious, hard and nerve-wracking part, interrupted by moments of exhilaration. Playing live is the chance to actually have some fun and get on a stage.

We need a free media, not just freedom of speech.

Fun is when you're writing a song and you're trying a rough shot at a demo and ... it works. That's when it's fun. After that, it's work.

I was a fixer, a builder - an inventor - ever since I can remember.

There are an awful lot of people out there that don't want to see Boston go away, and I'm one of them.

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.

'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.

I'm not one of those artists who doesn't want to play their most popular songs.

'Life, Love & Hope' is ... I'm thinking 'larger picture.' I'm not trying to preach to anyone. We all get lost and caught up in our everyday problems. Your cellphone doesn't work or you got a parking ticket, you had a bad day at work. You can lose sight of the really important things in life; that's what the song is about.

The music that I wrote and recorded is music that I really enjoy listening to. It's just dumb luck that a lot of other people do, too.

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.

I'm a huge fan of Joe Walsh and a big James Gang fan. A lot of what I know about playing the guitar I learned from listening to him.

People have been convinced that growth for growth's sake is a good thing.

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.

I don't listen to the radio in the car, and I do that because I don't want to be influenced.

Analog sounds so much better. I frankly can't listen to digital audio for more than a few hours without really starting to hate what I'm listening to. Even decent 24-bit digital resolution really irritates me after a while.

I took classical piano for a couple of years, but I sort of lost interest - I couldn't read a note today if I tried. I still enjoy that stuff, and I think I naturally gravitate towards the classical licks; in fact, I know that I do. I gravitate towards the classical licks that I heard by famous old composers.

I don't work out a lead section and practice it for a day and then lay it down. I don't do that. The first time I do something I think is expressive or really cool, that's what's actually on the recording.

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.

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.

The whole experience of getting an album from an artist you like and listening to it from beginning to end is sort of gone. Now it's piecemeal.