In times of joy and sorrow, love or hate, peace and unrest, music has always been an important outlet for expressing our emotions individually and as a nation.
David Bryan
My muse has always been the piano.
We would say we would play every pay toilet and use our own change. Across America and across the world, we just kept going and going.
I've been through a lot of experiences in my life being in the biggest band in the world.
I remember that poster of Led Zeppelin with the plane. I had it on my wall when I was a kid. I thought that was the coolest. It amazes me that it came true.
In rock n' roll, there are notes that aren't like notes. They're something in between, and it's the way you scoop into it.
We never do the same set twice... We play for at least two and a half hours, sometimes longer, so there's a lot of songs from all the records. And we know there's a stable we as fans would want to hear, so we always give them, then we change up a bunch of songs and throw in a couple new ones.
When I was growing up, I had more comedy albums than musical ones. George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor - those were my main men.
We keep trying to get better - constantly working at it. We love to tour. I love to play in front of people. You sit there, and everybody's smiling, and you're smiling. It's a good time.
Some I want to see just for curiosity. But no, I don't really rush out to see a bunch of musicals.
Every time you're on stage, you look out at a packed house, people all the way up to the top, people having a blast, everybody forgetting about the world for a couple hours. That's a special thing.
The Broadway run of 'Memphis' has been like going to the moon. It was so great to actually open at the Shubert Theatre and then amazing to be nominated for eight Tonys and attend all the luncheons and events.
The American Music Awards mean more to us; that's a people's award, and we're a people's band. The Grammys are the critics.
I'm a good Jewish boy from Edison, New Jersey, so I went and saw 'Fiddler on the Roof' because you have to: that's part of your bar mitzvah experience.
Whether you're black or white, you're a human - and that's what matters.
I'd say that 98 percent of the bands we've played with through the years have either broken up or are stuck in some kind of '80s revival now.
You start out with your eyes wide open, and you've got dreams, and we worked really, really hard, and ours came true. So - and we're fortunate enough to keep putting out number one records, and we're fortunate enough to get out there and keep playing, and we truly have a blast.
I think, bad times, I sit down and I play - there's definitely certain songs that touch in certain ways. I go back to 'Moonlight Sonata' by Beethoven; that usually takes care of everything.
A lot of my friends are doctors, and the difference between me and them is there's no musical emergencies to pull me away from dinner. 'I need the chords for that song right now!' No, it can wait.
I like to see other bands, and I like to hear their songs, but I really like it when they engage the audience.
It's funny - Americans are the colonials who ran away from the royals, and yet we're fascinated by them.
It's a sense of pride, a sense of you set out to get a record deal, and we got that. We set out to get a No. 1 record, and then we got that. Then you say, 'Wow, that was impossible and now even more impossible is to stay No. 1 and stay current and put out new records that people care about,' and we really stuck to that.
Musicals weren't on my radar.
When I'm writing Broadway, it's for a character, a man, a woman, an old guy, a kid. In the band, you're talking in your own voice in the lyrics, saying what you think or feel. On Broadway, you're expressing that through a character.
Before 'Memphis,' I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.
I just write the way I feel, and if it feels good to me, hopefully everybody likes it.
I think 'Slippery When Wet' was the turning point, where our records represent our energy that we do live.
I grew up as one of the few Jews in Edison, and I had people tell me they hated me because of my religion.
I don't like it when bands don't want to play that one song everybody wants to hear. I think that's cheating everybody, and I think it's selfish of an artist to do that.
Glass and wearable technology is an example of another step in consumer-facing innovation that will change how we share the music experience with our fans in the future.
I love my band. I love to play. I love to write.
On stage with the band, your destiny lies in your own hands.
When it comes to writing musicals, you write the best piece you can. Then, its destiny is in the hands of the actors and the director.
When you're on tour with the band, it's a different mentality. You don't sightsee because you're making sure you can do the show. But in musicals, I don't have to sing or play: I just have to use my brain, and the rest of the time, I'm free.
We've always been just an American rock n' roll band.
Most of Broadway is based on a movie or a book. You don't see many original musicals.
I've been playing piano since I was 7. I took 15 years of lessons. I've got a lot of miles on these hands.
A musical is really one of the most complicated beasts. It's a play, and there's music... and there's dancing... it's unbelievably satisfying to get something up out of your brain onto a piece of paper ... and start the process and then see it on the stage.
Most theatre people and composers are like research hounds.
We never do the same set twice.
I think growing up in the shadow of New York shaped me for life. Hey, you come from Jersey, you get used to being dumped on by the big city.
I'm in a very successful band. We all love each other. It ain't ever breaking up. I also have a terrific hobby that became a full-time job. My only problem? There's not enough time to sleep in my world.
There's no way you can imagine going from kids in high school to being the best band in the world.
How do we keep it up? Because that's what we do; we're musicians, and we love to play and make music. And with every album, we get better, and with every tour, we get better.
When I'm playing in the band, I'm sweating - giving 120 percent.
I'm not a guy who grew up in theater. I've always played in rock bands.
We've always been a band of the people, and we will always remain a band of the people.
I'm going to stop when I'm 100. I put a limit on myself.
My father was a very big musical influence on me. He was a trumpet player. And that's what I started with. Then, when I was 7, my parents introduced me to the piano.
I just wanted to release an album of piano music for music's sake. I'm not expecting to sell millions of albums. It's was just nice to be able to sit down at an acoustic piano and make some music.
