Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waitsis an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding like "it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth7 December 1949
CityPomona, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I'm interested in things when I don't know what they are. Like "Hey, Ray, what the hell is this?" Oh, that's lipstick from the 1700s, that's dog food from the turn of the century, that's a hat from World War II. I'm interested in the minutiae of things. Oddities.
The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone
Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone.
The trick is to have a career and have a family. It's like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.
It's the same with men as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die.
You have to keep busy. After all, no dog's ever pissed on a moving car.
I used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M.
Commercials are an unnatural use of my work, ... It's like having a cow's udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating.
I have a Chamberlain I bought from some surfers in Westwood many years ago. It's an early analog synthesizer; it operates on tape loops. It has 60 voices - everything from galloping horses to owls to rain to every instrument in the orchestra.
Some day I'm gonna be gone and people will be listening to my songs and conjuring me up. In order for that to happen, you gotta put something of yourself in it.
If you are making a record, you are the one saying 'action', and you are the one saying 'cut,' and you have to be sure that the most interesting thing is not going on outside the frame.
People say all kinds of things about the ingredients of songs. But you know they are a kind of magic, in the sense that they may easily include a stain on your bedroom wall... and a variety of mis-recollections. And then you name it after a girl's name that you just made up.
The only thing worse than being in the Hall of Fame is not being in the Hall of Fame.
Mostly, I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.