Creativity Quote by Dave Haywood

Stage fright is supposed to be a musician's native habitat, but Dave Haywood draws a sharp line between the normal jitters of performance and the particular psychic pressure of television. The first clause, "We don't get too nervous for too may things", is casual, almost folksy self-branding: we're pros, we've been around. Then the sentence swerves into the real point - not talent, not songcraft, but scale and permanence. TV doesn't just multiply the audience; it changes the relationship. A live crowd is noisy, forgiving, and diffuse. Television turns millions into a silent, imagined jury, sitting "there watching" with the unnerving intimacy of a close-up.

Haywood's wording makes the anxiety feel physical and immediate. "A few million people" is both hyperbole-adjacent and emotionally accurate: the number is less a statistic than a weight dropped into the middle of the sentence. And the slightly awkward repetition - "too nervous... too may things" - reads like someone talking around a feeling he doesn't want to dramatize. That restraint is the subtext. He's admitting vulnerability while trying not to perform vulnerability.

Context matters: for modern artists, TV appearances are legacy gates and algorithmic accelerants at once. A shaky note isn't just a moment; it's a clip, a meme, a forever artifact. "Definitely a lot more nerves" lands like a shrug, but it's really an acknowledgment that broadcast culture turns even seasoned performers into people who suddenly remember they're being watched.