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
There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole music thing that's changed the role it plays for us all. You are doing it while you are doing other things. Not that that is new - people have had music on in the background as long as there has been music.
All medical procedures require two hands, so in a sense it's like when you play an instrument. That's what they call things that they use in their work: They call them instruments. A lot of people start out majoring in medicine and drop it and change their major to music.
If you record the sound of bacon in a frying pan and play it back, it sounds like the pops and cracks on an old 33 1/3 recording. Almost exactly like that. You could substitute it for that sound.
It's hard to play with a bagpipe player. It's like an exotic bird. I love the sound, it's like strangling a goose.
The ocean doesn't want me today, But I'll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard's away But the ocean doesn't want me today
Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money. Tom Waits (to me, about 1986 or so)
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.
You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like it's hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it wants more silver discs.
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.
The large print giveth, but the small print taketh away.
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 used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M.
and I have lawyers over there investigating my options.
George Bush is a fan of mine -- he came to see me in the Seventies. His coke dealer brought him.