Jason Mraz
I think it's important and I think it's true that our life experience is going to be about our attitude, our thoughts, our beliefs, our speech and our actions. We can transform our life experience simply by changing our language.Collection: Attitude
Equality and separation cannot exist in the same space.Collection: Space
Music is a weapon in the war against unhappiness.Collection: Music
I love getting to bounce around and explore so much. I love Scandinavia. I love Spain. It's so mystical and romantic, yet it's gritty.Collection: Romantic
I'm totally into new age and self-help books. I used to work in a bookstore and that's the section they gave me, and I got way into it. I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.Collection: Positive
I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.Collection: Dad
In Buddhism, they say attachment to anything only leads to suffering. So when we laugh, it's our way of saying, 'I'm unattached to that.' You're tickled by it, it makes your lobes do something on their own. So humor is very important to me. I always take that to the stage first.Collection: Humor
Two halves don't make a whole. Two wholes make a whole. In my relationship, I was giving myself away to make the relationship better, but in actuality, wasn't doing better by doing that. I became less of a man.Collection: Relationship
It's easier to write from my own life, and it's also more fun. I always write about relationships, for instance, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, encounters... there's always a lesson to be learned from them.Collection: Romantic
Well, my view before was a Western view, and I certainly understand marriage equality and civil rights, equal rights for all, but having visited developing nations and some of the poorest nations in the world, I realize how deep it goes and how much work really needs to be done to create equality for all.Collection: Equality
I always think of the live show first, where the song is gonna go in the show. That's why they aren't sad songs. When I play, I want to make people happy, not sad. It's such a pleasure for me to do what I do, and I want other people to feel some form of that pleasure, too.Collection: Sad
I'm actually no longer a strict vegan. I don't hang out in the cheese section - I don't even eat cheese. I don't drink milk. But every once in a while I'll have an egg. I'm going to eat eggs that come out of my next-door neighbor's farm, that's just the way it is.
I think anyone who uses the web is smart and will profit.
There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe.
You can't live the rest of your life carrying a pain because your parents couldn't get along. I choose to spend my life crafting a joy.
When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.
But my strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting, which is what was closest to my heart, then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being myself and living my dream.
I think it's important to earn your fan base and not just try to immediately advance to the top. If you ride to the top quickly, you're liable to fall as quickly. Take your time. It's a long journey ahead of you as an artist. There's nowhere that you're supposed to be other than right now living inside of your art.
Getting on stage is a bonus, that's my therapy, that's when I can tell stories and it all makes sense.
By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.
When I sit down to write a song, I really want the message of healing to thrive and transcend all ages.
Well, for me, what I've learned at the very end of this, love is sharing, and I think that really is, for me, the best place to go to experience love, is sharing.
If you're a new artist, practice your art and share it. Set up shop somewhere, whether it's a street corner or a coffee shop. I got my start in a coffee shop that didn't even have live music. I wanted to play in coffee shops that did have live music, but I didn't have an audience.
My goal is to show everyone that they, too, can do what they love to do.
Sometimes you forget where the heck you are but when you get on stage, you know by the look on the people's faces and the accent in their voices where you might be.
Music was always the distraction, so it was the obvious choice to pursue. My dad always said to find a job I love to do, that way it wouldn't feel like a job. So I did that.
I had a gig in Sweden. There were thousands of people there, and when I launched into 'I'm Yours,' they were all singing along. It was as if I was singing the Swedish national anthem. I was stunned.
New York City has the most beautiful women.
It's from being melancholy and having my human down experiences that I learn, that I overcome, that I transform - and these realizations I put into song. That's what I choose to put in my backpack and carry with me around the world.
Careers can disappear just as quickly as they're made, so I'm in no hurry.
I basically had the idea when I was 18 that I wanted to write my own songs. I knew it was going to be a long, tough road, and I was like, if I just begin now, by the time I'm 40, I'll be good at it.
I buy records from all across the board. I get kind of a hybrid of influences in my own music.
I came from Mechanicsville, Virginia, where you have four seasons.
I think especially with the Internet and the amount of reality shows that are going on, there's no way to keep a secret anymore, so I try to let my project be as much as reality show as I can allow it to be.
I'm trying to be more of a gentleman.
In the words of Michael Jackson: I'm a lover, not a fighter.
It was a very bizarre experience for me, to get the songs together, go in there, and try to deliver them as I would perhaps in a live setting. But I realized that I couldn't take on that coffeehouse style that I came from and go in there and burn it up.
My parents dreaded the fact that I was changing my life to do this, but I just kept doing it.
Our shows are packed with laughter and light-hearted songs to lift the listener from their everyday life. We encourage the audience to participate in any way.
Surrender to life itself and you'll just be rewarded with so many things. And I've been rewarded so many times, in so many mysterious ways. So I have no reason to be disappointed with anything.
The easiest songs to write are pure fiction. There is no limit to how you can tell the story. I find it difficult when I'm replaying an event through a song.
Traveling has a major impact on what I do, cause all over the world I'm meeting all kinds of people. And relationships is the second major impact that I have. I just enjoy the variety that the world has to offer.
We want people to see us live before we continue on and call ourselves recording artists.
Songs always get better after you start playing them live.
And if you're singing to someone, or if they're singing along, and suddenly you're in harmony, then it's actually making a huge difference on a subatomic level that is actually transforming the world.
You know, there's still a lot of great songwriters out there who hand in songs. And there's a lot of brilliant singers and performers out there who sing other people's words. I enjoy doing both.
I call it sacred geometry. When everything's just right and it feels really balanced, so that when it unfolds to the next part, you feel totally familiar and at ease within the song.
I'm not a virtuoso on an instrument. You know, I'm not always singing in pitch. I laugh sometimes my way through the shows, but I'm an honest songwriter who's always tried to bring the audience with me on my journey in hopes that they see their own lives reflected in the work.
But that guitar is the perfect companion to the human voice. You rest it against your gut, against your heart, and when you strum it the vibrations go outwards for all to hear, but the vibration also hits you on your body.
My parents were always very supportive and accepting. They even shared my curiosity for life, or perhaps I theirs.