It's often said that life is strange. But compared to what?
Steve Forbert
I haven't had the most lucrative career. If I'm going to be completely honest, I'm a one-hit wonder.
It's not like making records is terrible. Still, I do find the writing of the songs and the live shows to be the things that give you the most clear picture of what it's all about.
If something doesn't work, you have to admit it. Always try to find what's going right and what's going wrong with your music. If you can, pool your resources and record yourself; do that frequently.
I've been traveling around to play music since before I even had a driver's license.
People can't stay out of their cars. I do think we have a real problem staying out of our automobiles. We have a real dependency on them, and it may be for more than just transportation.
Music should be truthful and real, but it should also be healing and uplifting.
I don't cringe when I think of doing old material. A lot of the people have been with me through the years.
And the music, as far as a type of music, it's still pretty viable.
I wouldn't be interested in just doing a show that's mapped out and choreographed with a set list. That would've been boring so long ago it just wouldn't be any fun.
But I'm able to just keep going, and that's the challenge. It's the next song. And then just enjoying the shows and people who come out to the shows. It's pretty organic, really.
Folk-rock hasn't changed much over the decades since the Byrds started it.
I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.
I relate to the audiences and they know me. It's pretty real.
I'm not trying to be the new anybody.
I've had an advantage; I've had a sort of open public acceptance in New York that doesn't happen to just anyone trying to make the transition you were talking about.
So I played the acoustic guitar and harmonica and stomped my foot and I think I was right in assuming that Greenwich Village would be the best place to perform my own material and possibly get some attention, move on to making records and all.
There was just no way I could leave this little Martin guitar in my apartment overnight or even in the afternoon, and expect to find it there when I got back.
You don't see a lot of difference between the Gin Blossoms and the Byrds.
My priority doesn't lie with the whole website and Facebook and such; I'm still walking down the road in a pair of real shoes. You need to just play as much as you can. Get in front of people, as I've always said. It doesn't matter if it's ten people at an open mic or opening a show for someone. Play all the time.
For as long as I'm able to write songs and sing them, it's just about making them ones I feel proud to sing again and again.
I like getting requests from audience members.
I'm never gonna be a Carlos Santana - an instrumentalist. I just like songs. It's three minutes of something that can be very powerful.
You have a song, and people know it. It's like a calling card for you.
I have a knack for writing tribute songs for people who will never know about them.
You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.
As you get out and try to do things, you always find that in order to make an idea a reality, it goes through some changes. It doesn't always come out exactly like you envisioned it.
I'm still trying to make it. I'm still trying to get this over and do it and hopefully leave some kind of a mark on the course of American music, particularly in the tradition of what you might call the singer-songwriter.
I have ideas in mind, things that I'm working toward. There have to be goals; there has to be a challenge. Just playing, in and of itself, is great. But there has to be some motivation to it.
I'm self-deprecating, but I'm an artist, too. I have to write new songs to chronicle stuff for myself. I write a song like 'Middle Age' or 'Responsibility' or 'I Just Work Here,' and it's about how bleak life can be. But it's real.
