“As a kid, I was obsessed with the Who. They were the most important band to me. Songs like "I'm One" helped me get through high school.” ImportantKidsSchoolSongBandHigh SchoolObsessed Author:Judd Apatow
“I had a band called the Sound Of Love and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape and that was that.” TryingBigsSchoolSongGirlSoundBandHigh School Author:Mac DeMarco
“First of all, I'm not a heartthrob. If you saw me in high school, you wouldn't say I'm a heartthrob. Having a hit song, the minute you're famous, you're a heartthrob. I know you don't believe me, but I honestly don't consider myself a heartthrob.” IfsKnowsFirstsBelieveSchoolSongSawsMinutesHigh SchoolDon't BelieveHonestlyBelieve In Me Author:Enrique Iglesias
“I started writing songs in high school and always wanted to have a band, and eventually my creative endeavors developed into Theocracy. So in some ways, you could say the vision has been there since I started writing songs.” WayWritingHas BeensWantedSchoolSongVisionCreativeBandHigh SchoolEndeavorWriting SongsTheocracy Author:Matt Smith
“My brother was in high school and he had a garage band going, but no one would sing. They were covering a Hatebreed song at the time and I knew the words for it. My brother knew I knew the words, so he came inside the house and he's like 'Hey Mitch, come out here and sing'. I did it and after that I started a band with my older brother. That's how I got started.” SchoolSongHouseBrotherBandHigh SchoolHeyMy BrotherCoveringGarageOlder Brother Author:Mitch Lucker
“Hairspray is the only movie I made that's subversive, because they're doing it in every high school in America. A man's playing a woman, and two men sing a love song to each other.” MenMadeTwoSchoolAmericaSongHigh SchoolSubversiveHairspray Author:John Waters
“In high school no guys wanted to be in a band with me unless I was going to play bass or play grindcore or be in a scream-o band, so it was fun to finally have that experience of having my songs backed by a drummer and a bassist who were just as excited about it as I was.” PlayWantedSchoolGuySongFunBandHigh SchoolExcitedScreamBassDrummerBassists Author:Weyes Blood
“It's was all the internet. I started writing songs in high school, right about the time of the onset of Napster. I went to college in Dallas, and when I'd get back from class I'd have fans emailing me from different areas of the country asking when the album was going to be out and when I was going on tour. It was crazy, because I didn't even consider myself a professional musician.” WritingDifferentCountrySchoolSongCrazyCollegeInternetMusicianHigh School Author:Graham Colton
“When I was 18 years old, I went on the road with my dad after I graduated from high school. And we were riding on the tour bus one day, kind of rolling through the South, and he mentioned a song. We started talking about songs, and he mentioned one, and I said I don't know that one. And he mentioned another. I said I don't know that one either, Dad, and he became very alarmed that I didn't know what he considered my own musical genealogy.” KnowsYearsKindSaidSchoolSongMy OwnTalkingDadOne DayHigh SchoolSouthMusicalMy DadBusRidingRollingGenealogy Author:Rosanne Cash
“When I was a teenager, working towards dropping out of high school to starting to tour with bands, I'd drive around in my VW Bug every morning before school, very stoned listening over and over to Zeppelin. This song got to me because it just seemed mystical. There is something about those Celtic tunings that almost sounds Eastern. Somehow it would sweep me up into my own little trance-like state, like Sting with those shamans in the Amazon. But all I had was a bong and a Led Zeppelin cassette.” LittlesStatesSchoolSongSoundMy OwnMorningListeningBandHigh SchoolStartingTeenagerEvery MorningMysticalEasternBugsDroppingAmazonTranceCelticZeppelinsTuningCassettesDropping OutBongs Author:Dave Grohl
“I got to sing solo in the junior choir when I was 10 or 11 and won a competition, and my sister's piano playing improved to a certain level. One time my sister and I worked together. The first song we ever sang in High School was Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett.” FirstsSchoolTogetherCertainSongLevelsHigh SchoolCompetitionRichesPianoMy SisterOne TimeSoloJuniorsRagsChoirPiano PlayingRags To Riches Author:Gordon Lightfoot
“P.I.L. has been a favorite of mine since high school especially there metal box album. The guitarist Keith Levine gets some of the best sounds ever to come out of a guitar. The songs are really free form and experimental and have a heavy dub influence.” Has BeensSchoolFormSongSoundInfluenceMinesHigh SchoolGuitarAlbumsBoxesHeavyMetalsGuitaristKeith Author:Marcel Dzama
“When I was on the big labels, I never calculated what would make me sell more records. I just did what I did -no different than when I wrote songs for myself in high-school.” DifferentBigsSchoolSongRecordsHigh SchoolSellsLabels Author:Jill Sobule
“My musical background in Tyler, Texas was quite outstanding. Uh, I grew up with, uh, with high school teachers who were in bands, they could play music. And we had a nine piece band there in Tyler, and I joined them when I was about, oh, 15 years old and traveled all over Texas in that band, playing for the elite oil people. Hah. And um, I was making about 50 bucks a night, and uh, it taught me, they taught me how to find my timing and to learn the songs that I wanted.” PeopleYearsPlayWantedSchoolNightSongTeacherPiecesTaughtGrewBandGrew UpHigh SchoolMusicalOilNineBackgroundsTexasElitesTimingTraveledOutstandingBucksSchool TeachersHigh School Teachers Author:Carl Gardner
“I've been writing music since I was about eight. I would write sporadically. I wrote a lot of music in high school. I guess the oldest song on the record ("I Thought I Saw Your Face") is about eight years old. It's the old "I had my whole life to write my first album and six months to write the second one." I did, to some degree, but actually, a lot of the songs that ended up on the record, I wrote really recently. So it varies.” WritingYearsFirstsWholeSchoolFacesSongRecordsSawsMonthsDegreesSixHigh SchoolAlbumsEightWhole LifeYour FaceSix MonthsVaryWriting Music Author:Zooey Deschanel
“I was in orchestra in high school, but I really started when a friend of mine who's a drummer showed me some things. I was always just really fascinated with drums, it was the instrument I was always drawn towards. My ear sort of went to rhythmic aspects of music and songs. But he really was the beginning point of starting me on drum sets; like I said, I was in the orchestra first and I was playing orchestral snare and mallet instruments first.” SchoolSongHigh SchoolDrummer Author:Carla Azar
“That was my intention, was to have it be from the perspective of my high-school-aged self, and to try and emulate the music that I listened to at that time. So to write essentially like a pop-punk song about musicals. I wanted the dichotomy of the tone of the music with the lyrics and my singing voice.” WritingTryingSelfWantedSchoolSongVoicePerspectiveSingingHigh SchoolIntentionPopsTonePunkEmulateDichotomy Author:Laura Benanti
“So yeah, when I was a kid, when I was 16, 17, I'd come home from high school, and my dad collected all of Barbra Streisand's records. And she was very young then. I think she probably had three records out, and she was 21, and we had them all. And I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell. And I sang along to it.” ThinkingHomeKidsSchoolYoungSongThreeRecordsDadHigh SchoolBreathsYeahMy DadComing HomeStreisand Author:Meryl Streep
“But for me, it [singing] was a way to get out the feeling of the song, and also to get out the feelings that, you know, roil in high school, to express something that I had no other way of expressing.” KnowsWayFeelingsSchoolSongSingingHigh School Author:Meryl Streep
“In high school, some of the guys were really into music. When I first joined the team as a sophomore, I was blown away when we came out for our first home matchI'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it. The seniors would bring their whole stereo system. We started by yelling and stuff inside this little room just off the gym; then the coaches said, "Ready. Go!" We threw open the door and came running out. Even when I hear the songs now I get all jacked up.” ThinkingFirstsLittlesSaidWholeHomeRunningSchoolGuySongStuffRoomsDoorsTeamReadyHigh SchoolCoachesGymSeniorBumpsYellingGeeseBlown AwaySophomoreFirst Home Author:Karch Kiraly
“I got a new 4-track cassette recorder a year or so after high school. For a while I would just stare at it thinking, how am I going to do this if I don't play guitar or keyboards? How am I going to write and record a song if I don't know how to play any instruments? I mean, I played the violin, but I didn't know anything about how to work a 4-track.” IfsThinkingKnowsWritingYearsMeanPlaySchoolSongKnow HowRecordsHigh SchoolInstrumentsGuitarTrackStaringViolinKeyboardsRecordersCassettesAfter High School Author:Petra Haden
“My elementary school is still there [in Luttrell, Tennessee]. I drop by my high school. It's a small community. I say this every night before I do the song 'The Boys of Fall' in the show - I'm really happy about where I grew up and how I grew up.” StillsShowsSchoolNightSongFallCommunityBoysGrewGrew UpHigh SchoolEvery NightReally HappyTennesseeElementary SchoolSmall Communities Author:Kenny Chesney
“I was in orchestra in high school, but I really started when a friend of mine who's a drummer showed me some things. I was always just really fascinated with drums, it was the instrument I was always drawn towards. My ear sort of went to rhythmic aspects of music and songs.” SchoolSongHigh SchoolDrummer Author:Carla Azar
“I have no idea how I do anything. I never have. You know I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call "Don McLean" when I was probably in high school. And I have been doing this for 40 years, adding songs and writing things, cobbling together albums, doing live things, you know, albums and tours. And then I have records on the charts. I have no idea how this happened.” WritingSchoolTogetherSongSingingHigh School Author:Don McLean
“I always was into singer-songwriters like Bright Eyes. When I was in high school I wanted to do a project that was like that. Weatherbox is the name of a song by Mission of Burma so I just had a theoretical acoustic project while I was in high school that didn't actually exist.” EyeSchoolSongHigh SchoolTheoreticalBright Eyes Author:Brian Warren
“I did my last year of high school as an exchange student. I lived south of the Atlanta, in a quite strange place - real southern. I formed my first band that year and we just started playing my songs live. It was way in for me to get to know people and to really feel at home there - through music.” PeopleRealHomeSchoolSongStudentsStrangeHigh SchoolSouthern Author:Anna Ternheim
“I would go into my three different sisters' rooms in the early-mid '70s and they had very specific different tastes in music. I specifically remember lying on my different sisters' bedroom floors and listening to their record collections. And "Starship Trooper" was one of my sister Nancy's favorite songs and favorite album. Music is so defining for me. In the late '70s and early '80s, I worked in radio. When I was in high school, I worked at two different radio stations.” DifferentSchoolRememberLyingSongListeningMusic IsHigh SchoolMy SisterBedroomFavorite Song Author:Thomas Haden Church
“So, you’re hitting on Clare the Fair.” “I’m not hitting on her. I’m exploring the possibility of seeing her on social terms.” “He’s hitting on her,” Owen said around a mouthful of chips. “You’ve still got that thing you had for her back in high school. Are you still writing bad song lyrics about heartbreak?” “Suck me. And they weren’t that bad.” “Yeah, they were,” Ryder disagreed. “But at least now we don’t have to listen to you playing your keyboard and howling them down the hall.” WritingSaidStillsSchoolSongSocialTermSeeingPossibilityHigh SchoolFairsYeahHallsHittingExploringChipsKeyboards Book:The Next Always Source: The Next Always