Tommy Shaw Quotes

Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.

— Tommy Shaw

“You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I don't like looking back.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I'd better be on the road, or I'll be going nuts. I'm not the kind of guy who sits around with a pipe and slippers watching soap operas.”

— Tommy Shaw

“When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.”

— Tommy Shaw

“It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords.”

— Tommy Shaw

I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about.

— Tommy Shaw

“We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there.”

— Tommy Shaw

Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already.

— Tommy Shaw

“By the time I did that third solo album, I'd finally learned how to do it, but I'd also learned that I liked being in a band.”

— Tommy Shaw

I have always been a sucker for the big, upbeat chorus.

— Tommy Shaw

“I've always stuck with Gibsons. I've had Guilds and Fenders, too, but I always wind up going back to Gibsons.”

— Tommy Shaw

“If music became extinct now, I don't know what I'd be good for.”

— Tommy Shaw

Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.

— Tommy Shaw

“We're kind of defined by our mistakes.”

— Tommy Shaw

When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.

— Tommy Shaw

“It is all about being open and paying attention to the music in your head. I think most people have original music playing in their heads from time to time.”

— Tommy Shaw

“On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I feel like I have the greatest life an artist could dream of.”

— Tommy Shaw

Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.

— Tommy Shaw

“As a solo artist, I just felt cemented in front of the mike stand. There was very little time to play with the audience and be a band member.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I soon gave up instruction for self-teaching.”

— Tommy Shaw

“If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.”

— Tommy Shaw

When it stops being fun, stop.

— Tommy Shaw

“I don't write on tour. There is so much to do day in and day out when you are on the road.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I love the idea of stepping out of the band situation into a solo world with no boundaries, no expectations, where nothing is out of bounds.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not.”

— Tommy Shaw

“Les Pauls work out real well for me because I'll beat the hell out of them and they'll still work. The only trouble with them is finding good ones.”

— Tommy Shaw

“Make sure you know what you are signing when you sign a recording contract.”

— Tommy Shaw

“There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them.”

— Tommy Shaw

When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing.

— Tommy Shaw

“When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I never did heroin, because I thought that meant I was doing heavy drugs, which shows you the insanity of doing drugs. I probably should have done heroin, because I understand heroin actually makes you feel good. Cocaine just makes you stupid.”

— Tommy Shaw

“When I was a kid, I liked the newer music that was coming out. I have never really felt confined by any style of music. I would play in bands that were soul bands or that played standards - any kind of music that I enjoyed playing.”

— Tommy Shaw

“I remember my first moment onstage was at a 4-H contest at the Pratville Junior High School cafeteria auditorium around 1965. I had my first electric, a Silvertone with the amp built into the case, and I won first prize.”

— Tommy Shaw