At the end of the day, all people want to do is hear a great singer sing a great song. They don't care about what vocal changes it went through. You can't screw up a great song and a great singer.
I've always been the high harmony singer. It's never my job to know the verses! But I know the chorus of every song ever made.
When you ask a songwriter, "What's your favorite song?" he goes, "The next one."
I went on iTunes and looked at versions of Christmas songs. Everyone has done them!
Basically what I'm trying to say is that when you get down to the nitty gritty of song writing, it is very logical to a certain degree. It requires a bit of intuition as to how things can fit together elegantly.
My favourite thing about live shows is you can make up new songs on the spot. Never played before, never again. And that's wonderful for me, because it frees me up to not have to worry about lyrics and stuff.
The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order, beauty and joy, goodness and love. The idea of God that man has in his being is the wonder of all wonders. He has felt in the depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the manifestation of the perfect.
A lot of my songs are very personal, always, but this one felt like a memoir. I almost called it Hallucinated Memoir. "Granny" is a hallucinated memoir. It's straight-up symbolism for my life, in many ways.
My songs are very much a kind of psychoanalysis. I am very introspective in my songs, and I am working through, always.
When I reissue these Minimal Wave Record songs, I also re-master them. With Oppenheimer Analysis, it turned out that the band still had the master tapes. So, Martin Lloyd from the band and I baked the tapes to restore the quality.
I had been DJing a dance night in Brooklyn and witnessed the response people had to "The Devil's Dancers" - Oppenheimer's one hit song. All these young people were dancing to this amazing song, completely unaware of whether it was current or not. It was from 1982, but sounded very current. It made sense that a physical record should exist for this song again. It seemed the obvious choice to represent what Minimal Wave was going to be.
I was attracted to the aesthetics of post-punk bands and also their specific histories. Some of these acts could have achieved the level of fame of Joy Division or other peers, but circumstances didn't allow for it. I was looking at some old music charts in the magazine Vinyl - and all these songs had a brief moment in the Top 20 in various European countries. Then, they vanished. It's really fascinating, and sometimes a bit sad.
As I was not a good singer - I have started to sing. And because no one could write an appropriate song for me - I started to write songs by myself.
Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things. Their language has been lost. But not the gestures.
If I had my choice, I'd pick a song that tells a story every time. There is a great deal of pleasure in doing the vocal on a number that you can put feeling into.
As for music and my place in it, maybe things are changing a little bit. I know this: a good song is deeper than a tattoo. It'll remind you of the car you're driving and the girl you're going around with and the streets you're cruising. It's better than a photo album. A song is a tattoo that you never lose. 'Ice, Ice Baby,' man, you'll remember that when you're 90.
The songs from your childhood, when you hear them you get chills all over.
I relate to all of my songs and I'm inspired by everything going on around me. Music comes from all different aspects of my life.
But when you hear the complete album, it gets dark, really straight-up rock, with some really intimate moments with just me and the piano. It's not completely me because there are parts of me that aren't on that song, that are on the album.
My songs are a direct route into my brain and my heart.
Now, performing is second nature and I love every second of it. It is a very emotional thing when I can't play a song; maybe I'm hitting on something that I don't want to deal with. All of it is so personal. It is like therapy.
Writing 'This Is Who I Am...' I wanted to write a song about where I'm at, that I have accepted where I have come to and I wanted my fans to be able to connect to it too. I want them to stand proud!
A lot of things come together to make up a song. It's just images.
The music I really like to get off on is the old rhythm 'n' blues and rock 'n' roll stuff... that's what I really dig. And I also dig to sing ballads as well. And I also dig writing my own songs. I was just trying to find a way of integrating the whole thing, taking a look at the total picture.
Whether you're writing a book or a song or whatever, you've got to be involved in it. It's got to come from the heart I think...that's what it's all about.
