Steve Forbert

“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.”

“I'm not trying to be the new anybody.”

“I haven't had the most lucrative career. If I'm going to be completely honest, I'm a one-hit wonder.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“I relate to the audiences and they know me. It's pretty real.”

“Music should be truthful and real, but it should also be healing and uplifting.”

“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.”

“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.”