89 Quotes by Brandi Carlile

I feel like a lot of the singer-songwriters in my genre and in my generation have gotten more and more snooty about covering other people’s songs. They believe that creativity is the intersect of expression.

When I was younger, I was always running into other girls involved in music. When I was about 14 or 15, one of my friend’s dads was an Elvis impersonator and asked us to sing backups at a rehearsal. I did well and was hired. Did that for about two years.

I’m not so arrogant to consider mine the only legitimate art form. I can’t in one breath make a fuss about someone compartmentalizing music into genre and then in the next accuse advertising and short film of not being art.

I used to turn to nature and animals a lot. And fishing. I spend time still with my Bible and the gospel music, and I still have to feed the animals! But my wife and daughter have brought me a world of perspective when I’m feeling just a little “extra important.”

In life, I’m most inspired by entertaining people and driven by the desire to do it by such a powerful force that I think it influences everything I do.

Every city has a town outside with a lake. I pull out my fishing pole and fish. I’ve been doing that for a long time.

I’d love to claim the title of ‘songwriter’ or ‘intellectual,’ but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.

But now, with the last two years of touring and being on the road, I’ve learned that a live show should never sound like a record; a record should sound like a live show.