Van Hunt

“I write songs with melodies, which have sold for decades.”

“I sit down and I write and I make sure that it follows the code of Songwriting Craft 101.”

“I read a lot of astronomy magazines, and go to a lot of astronomy sites, and physics sites. I love reading about quantum computation and quantum physics. I don't understand it all, but I love reading it over and over again so that I think I have some idea of what they're talking about.”

“To articulate the ideas in your head, you need formal education, so you study music theory to do that. And that's the only responsibility that you have - to make that process work for you and express yourself. In this life, nothing is more important.”

“I can't even think of a greater success than materializing your own thoughts and to just see how people react to them.”

“I think I'm a punk rocker at heart. I just love the aggression in that music.”

“I read a lot of the battle that goes on between the ufologists, you know, the ones who think that UFOs are aliens, and the people who think that UFOs are demons. They battle with each other, and sometimes I interject comments, every now and then. Not as myself, but under another moniker.”

“I don't have a family that grew up singing and playing all the time. I didn't really have anything to judge my abilities against until I got out into the professional world and met other professional musicians. All I had was my own way of arriving at a song. That was it.”

“Sometimes when you sign to label as a black artist, they expect you to have a certain appeal. It's like they think they know what appeals to your people better than you do.”

“I know the music I hear and what I want. But sometimes I have to let that go and not try to be so esoteric.”

“I always knew I was an artist, and even more importantly, a star.”

“I love Bach cello suites, I love punk music, I love old blues, negro spiritual quartets, Muddy Waters' 'You Need Love.' There is a simplicity but also a bite that connects all that music, from the growl in the cello to the timbre in Muddy's voice.”

“I call myself a creationist. I'm sure some people will tell you that you need resistance, melodrama. I don't really need anything, honestly. A good night's sleep, a little time alone, and I feel like I can create a world.”

“Most artists say that they want to make the ultimate statement. I certainly do, but I don't mind people seeing all of the things that I would consider imperfections, because, quite honestly, I feel like they're better than anything else they're gonna hear.”

“The quantum world is still very mysterious, still seemingly very powerful, and I'm definitely attracted to the mysterious and the unknown and just the vastness of what my imagination puts on it.”

“I don't know very many people who don't yearn to be accepted, maybe except for myself. I'm in a business where I have to be accepted in order to make a living.”

“The foundation for me is the songwriting and the craft. All I want is for people to hear the music. Just put me in front of an audience.”

“To try and learn how to be a singer, a really good guitar player, a really good pianist, it's always lagged a bit behind learning to be the best songwriter I could possibly be because songwriting comes naturally to me.”

“Good, well-defined, well-honed art is not a foreign language. You can sell it to people. You just have to move your ego out of the way, clear out the unfinished fantasies you have about being an artist yourself, and just sell it.”

“I love Walter Mosley and Robert Parker crime novels. And I read a lot of music reviews.”