The person that inspires me artistically more than anyone is Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer)
I’m paraphrasing, but he said:
“It’s the music that moves people. We try to make music that we like that portrays a certain feeling, an emotion, a situation, and we build it into what it asks us to. We just get out of the way and let it be. It’s the music that’s important, if it wasn’t a fact then people would be doing sold out spoken word concerts, but they don’t, because the music is what grabs you. The lyrics can really help push a song with that added emotion, but I don’t think it’s vital.”
-MJK