John Cale - Quotes
On performing
"Live performances are it. That's when you have other people. When you're up on a stage, you're not listening to what you're playing. You're listening to the audience. You're listening to the interaction between the music and the audience. That's what I'm always aware of, that's why I like live performance more than just sitting in a studio writing."
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"I don't view audiences as amoeba in a petri dish, that you can just sort of nudge around and play with. It's more like - it's a combination of what the audience wants and what you can give them. You've really got to bring them with you. It's really great when you do a song that everybody knows but they don't recognise it because the arrangement is so different and then it dawns on everybody and it becomes something else entirely."
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"If you pick the right musicians, you minimize your problems. It's not the first impetus that they get along together, but it certainly helps."
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"Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure."
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"What I enjoy most about being on stage is that the natural instruments give you a greater freedom with texture. When you use natural instruments they have their own resonance."
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"When somebody grabs a movement, you're kind of locked into it. It's all par for the course."