I've been through a lot of experiences in my life being in the biggest band in the world.

A lot of my friends are doctors, and the difference between me and them is there's no musical emergencies to pull me away from dinner. 'I need the chords for that song right now!' No, it can wait.

In times of joy and sorrow, love or hate, peace and unrest, music has always been an important outlet for expressing our emotions individually and as a nation.

Why would we want to do an experimental album? That's just selfish.

When I was growing up, there was hate. I looked around and saw that it was so wrong. I got to go round the world with my rock band, and you can bring harmony.

I grew up as one of the few Jews in Edison, and I had people tell me they hated me because of my religion.

I've been playing piano since I was 7. I took 15 years of lessons. I've got a lot of miles on these hands.

I think growing up in the shadow of New York shaped me for life. Hey, you come from Jersey, you get used to being dumped on by the big city.

We're a bar band, so we know all the bar songs.

Everybody in the world has problems, and the nice thing about entertainment is you get to forget about those problems and have a good time for a couple of hours.

I just wanted to release an album of piano music for music's sake. I'm not expecting to sell millions of albums. It's was just nice to be able to sit down at an acoustic piano and make some music.

We don't want to just be known for what we did. We want to be known for what we do and what we did. We've been highly productive since 2000 when 'Crush' came out.

My muse has always been the piano.

I went to Temple Emanu-El, and my rabbi, Rabbi Landsberg, was a huge influence on me. When I was 7 and went to kindergarten, there he was, a young rabbi who didn't wear a yarmulke and rode a motorcycle.

I love the Memphis sound. When I was 16-and-a-half, with my driver's permit, I was playing New Jersey clubs in a 10-piece band; we had a horn section and would play great, great songs like 'Hold On! I'm Comin'' and 'Knock on Wood' and 'Midnight Hour.'

I remember that poster of Led Zeppelin with the plane. I had it on my wall when I was a kid. I thought that was the coolest. It amazes me that it came true.

Before 'Memphis,' I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.

You start out with your eyes wide open, and you've got dreams, and we worked really, really hard, and ours came true. So - and we're fortunate enough to keep putting out number one records, and we're fortunate enough to get out there and keep playing, and we truly have a blast.

On stage with the band, your destiny lies in your own hands.

I think 'Slippery When Wet' was the turning point, where our records represent our energy that we do live.

There's no glamour in stupid mistakes.

The Broadway run of 'Memphis' has been like going to the moon. It was so great to actually open at the Shubert Theatre and then amazing to be nominated for eight Tonys and attend all the luncheons and events.

'Memphis' lives in me, and I'm bringing it around the world.

We strive to have new records. We strive to have new songs on the radio. That feels good that we can gain those new fans and still bring out our fans that have been with us for some of the ride or all of the ride.

Any honor is an honor. You can't really say which one is better than the next, but it's always wonderful when you're honored by your peers for your work.

When I'm playing in the band, I'm sweating - giving 120 percent.

I like to see other bands, and I like to hear their songs, but I really like it when they engage the audience.

In rock n' roll, there are notes that aren't like notes. They're something in between, and it's the way you scoop into it.

Musicals weren't on my radar.

I'd say that 98 percent of the bands we've played with through the years have either broken up or are stuck in some kind of '80s revival now.

I just write the way I feel, and if it feels good to me, hopefully everybody likes it.

I love my band. I love to play. I love to write.

When it comes to writing musicals, you write the best piece you can. Then, its destiny is in the hands of the actors and the director.

When you're on tour with the band, it's a different mentality. You don't sightsee because you're making sure you can do the show. But in musicals, I don't have to sing or play: I just have to use my brain, and the rest of the time, I'm free.

The American Music Awards mean more to us; that's a people's award, and we're a people's band. The Grammys are the critics.

We've always been just an American rock n' roll band.

Most of Broadway is based on a movie or a book. You don't see many original musicals.

When I'm writing Broadway, it's for a character, a man, a woman, an old guy, a kid. In the band, you're talking in your own voice in the lyrics, saying what you think or feel. On Broadway, you're expressing that through a character.

Every time you're on stage, you look out at a packed house, people all the way up to the top, people having a blast, everybody forgetting about the world for a couple hours. That's a special thing.

I'm a good Jewish boy from Edison, New Jersey, so I went and saw 'Fiddler on the Roof' because you have to: that's part of your bar mitzvah experience.

Some I want to see just for curiosity. But no, I don't really rush out to see a bunch of musicals.

A musical is really one of the most complicated beasts. It's a play, and there's music... and there's dancing... it's unbelievably satisfying to get something up out of your brain onto a piece of paper ... and start the process and then see it on the stage.

Most theatre people and composers are like research hounds.

We never do the same set twice.

We never do the same set twice... We play for at least two and a half hours, sometimes longer, so there's a lot of songs from all the records. And we know there's a stable we as fans would want to hear, so we always give them, then we change up a bunch of songs and throw in a couple new ones.

When I was growing up, I had more comedy albums than musical ones. George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor - those were my main men.

I'm in a very successful band. We all love each other. It ain't ever breaking up. I also have a terrific hobby that became a full-time job. My only problem? There's not enough time to sleep in my world.

There's no way you can imagine going from kids in high school to being the best band in the world.

How do we keep it up? Because that's what we do; we're musicians, and we love to play and make music. And with every album, we get better, and with every tour, we get better.

I'm not a guy who grew up in theater. I've always played in rock bands.