I love it [music]. I always have loved it. There's something about playing music that inspires me. When I've had some really down periods in my life, debauched beyond belief, not knowing what the hell I'm gonna do with my life, [Rolling Stones'] "Street Fighting Man" or something like that would come on the radio, and I'm pounding the dash and the rock and roll will inspire me to keep going. It inspires me. It's true.
Creed BrattonNo matter how you get here or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place home.
Creed BrattonIn my early days, I was about 145 pounds. I was really a starving artist; the poster child for starving artists.
Creed BrattonI lived in London in 1965 and 1972. I love it there and I'm always very creative in that vibe. Would love to live for awhile in Scotland/Ireland and Britain. Great appreciation there for the folk scene and song crafting.
Creed BrattonI was with a folk trio back in '63 and '64, and we traveled all across North Africa, Israel, and Europe.
Creed BrattonThere's not that many people from the sixties who have progressed as writers and are continuing on. They're out there. But I'm one of them who's just continued on, following his own little inner madness.
Creed BrattonIโve been involved in a number of cults both as a leader and a follower. You have more fun as a follower but you make more money as a leader.
Creed BrattonWomen in stores will pull their children away from me sometimes so they won't catch the crazy Creed virus. Other folks are disappointed that I'm not that guy in person.
Creed BrattonYou've got to be happy, you have to do this thing [music] for the love. It's not like you go into music because it's going to make a lot of money. It's something you do... that's the thing. You got to accept all that hard work with it, too. And enjoy it, and love it.
Creed BrattonThe only difference between me and a homeless man is this job. I will do whatever it takes to surviveโฆlike I did when I was a homeless man.
Creed BrattonNobody steals from Creed Bratton and gets away with it. The last person to do this disappeared. His name? Creed Bratton.
Creed BrattonI keep busy. That was my nickname in college, 'Iron to the Fire.' I like to keep several things going at once.
Creed BrattonPlaying with my grandfather, grandmother and my parents, I came to music pretty naturally.
Creed BrattonI think if you don't have it [desire], you're not going to be pushed into anything. You've got to want to do something.
Creed BrattonI love Westerns and I remember as a kid climbing up on the couch and make it into a saddle and shoot guns and fall off. I would lay there after my death and my mom would tell me to eat lunch and I'd say, 'I'm still dead, Mom!' I was Method, even then.
Creed BrattonWhen I first went on [Facebook], I found there were five or six Creed Bratton sites. It was all over the place. I had to compete with other people saying they were me. It was nuts, so this is nice that people know that if they're gonna send something to me, I'm gonna be with my weird little mind looking at what they have to say. And what they're seeing is actually me.
Creed BrattonI'm an actor, I created the character myself originally. I do tell the fans I appreciate that they think he's real. It all finally comes down to the writers who really got the character and wrote so many memorable lines.
Creed BrattonI write songs for myself, songs come out of me, I get enjoyment out of it. Basically, that's it - I get enjoyment out of my songs, I know they're good songs, and know that the people around me who I respect are all getting up on these tunes, and the feedback is really good, so that's it. There are people who will receive them, and don't receive them. Not in a spiritual sense, but in a commercial sense - do these songs treat people, and so far they're working.
Creed BrattonIf I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll.
Creed BrattonIโm not offended by homosexuality. In the 60s I made love to many, many women โ often outdoors in the mud and the rain โ and itโs possible that a man slipped in. Thereโd be no way of knowing.
Creed BrattonI do love to walk around in New York because people will notice me, smile, but they never bother anyone. New Yorkers are very cool. I love New York.
Creed BrattonI'm not one of these people who sits down and writes to say I'm gonna write a song about this or that, or a specific subject. The songs actually kind of write themselves.
Creed BrattonWhat does a painter do? You get a painting, you put some intent and passion and emotion into these things, and hope the people will receive it. Same as a playwright. It's art.
Creed BrattonI wake up in the morning, or the middle of the night when an idea comes through. My songwriting style, basically I just write down information given to me from the muse and how that works for songwriters. Record the muse and the muse delivers.
Creed BrattonI'm a pretty normal guy. I do one weird thing. I like to go in the women's room for number two. I've been caught several times and I have paid dearly.
Creed BrattonI never took drug to escape. I know some people take drugs to escape, but I took drugs because I was an experimenter. And an artist. And I was always trying to go to the other side of that veil and get information, like all writers have done through the millennia. To get some insights on how the whole thing works, if there's any way to know how it works, and write about it.
Creed BrattonOh, I steal things all the time. It's just something I do. I stopped caring a long time ago.
Creed BrattonI liked back in the sixties where you'd turn on the radio and go 'Oh that's Hendrix, that's Creedence Clearwater, that's The Doors, there's The Grass Roots, The Monkees, there's Big Brother.' You could just instantly hear it and tell. But in the eighties and nineties there's no way you could do that.
Creed Bratton