[My work] is a love song to our mongrel selves.
My friend Lou Reed came to the end of his song. So very sad.But hey, Lou, you'll always take a walk on the wild side. Always a perfect day.
But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.
Staying healthy through movement and eating well gives you tons of energy and helps mold the skills that allow you to achieve goals from playing soccer to doing a tough homework assignment to writing a song.
The Mackenzie had never met folk so poor in story and song and legends, and it moved him to a pity that pricked at his eyes. Without that tapestry of colour and words and ritual, what was life but eating and mating, sleeping and moving your bowels? All of them good and necessary, but not enough; and they themselves needed that framework too, to give them meaning.
If you're talking to an architect, he can look at a blank piece of paper, and once the initial design is there, the formula kicks in. Each room should have something unique and different about it - much the same way that in a song, every eight bars or so, a new piece of information should be introduced.
"Tabernacle" was probably the easiest song I'd ever wrote because all I really had to do was rhyme the words since the whole story, front to back, was already in my head. All I needed to do was verbalize it, and if it didn't have to rhyme I could've just freestyled it because I already knew what I wanted to say.
The only reason I do anything is that I just love writing songs. If I write songs, I feel good about it for days and that's the only reason I do it and it is the only reason I'm in a band. And it's the touring aspect, getting out there, seeing the world, meeting people. It's all I ever really wanted, you know. And it's kind of ever since I was fourteen, I was compelled to do it. I just don't really know what it is or why it is.
I was the drummer in a band called Hemsworth for a brief stint, too - it was not very great. I didn't even write the songs, but the band was named after me.
Future's Pluto is my favorite album of the year. It's so emo. Future is the number one dude I'd love to produce for - every time I listen to the song he did with Rihanna, "Loveeeeeee Song", I'm like, "I should have produced that."
I wanted the songs to be themselves, instead of worrying about all this crazy slickster production.
I do craft songs, that this is designed. It's almost like the song was written to produce this desired effect. And it probably really works for somebody. It's maybe somebody's favorite tune, and it's really hard to come down on that, even if I feel a little embarrassed for it. Because some songs are written like a commercial, and that can be a little strange.
I can sort of will that stuff to happen to me if I put myself in the right headspace. Then I can actually get to a space where it won't just be one song that comes through, but a series of them.
Most of my songs are pretty sketchy. There's not a lot of bass sections. I don't write big bridges. Sometimes I'll try. But it's hard for me to focus that way, because I always think it's more interesting to just see what will happen next.
Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music.
I don't think I've ever gone on stage to be an asshole. I know one thing, from the past, and that's that my intentions always began in a pure way. I really want to just try and play the songs.
You can imagine several scenes from Star Wars? The way they looked? For me, that's how music is. Sometimes I'll be developing riffs for songs, just while I'm sitting around and not playing.
It's really very easy for me to be in The Cardinals, because I bring my voice, my guitar, and my songs to them, and then we all play around to find out what works.
I got on the phone with the president of my label and I said, "Obviously, I write songs in a lot of styles and play a lot of different kinds of music. We're getting toward the end of our business collaboration. If you could envision a record that you wanted to hear from me, what kind of record would it be?" It wasn't like asking him to fill an order, it was really just a conversation. For all the things I'd ever asked him, this was one thing I'd never asked, and I don't know why. So I was curious. And the thing that he was most interested in hearing was a solo record.
When I start working on a batch of tunes - like roughly 10 solid tunes - I always know there'll be another 10 to follow, because for every song I invest a lot of time in, there's another song waiting behind it.
To make a song is a gift, and once it's done it keeps evolving and changing and becomes a tool to interact with other people. It's like a conversation.
Being a rock musician is already like ego-tripping hardcore. You're self-consumed, and you're always thinking. It's really easy to say, "I'm going to write a song about this situation, and when I'm done, everyone will care." To everybody else, that's ego-tripping.
There are songs and melody that make you really happy. And there are spiritual gifts that you have - giving these gifts away sometimes gives you that feeling of inspiration. These seconds of awareness make you realize that any second can be your favorite one, and it really is up to you.
I'm still moving around.We're building a platform to put a song out every week for 52 weeks called ADD52.
Surely common sense as well as anthropological evidence documents the universal need to pray, to hope, and to lament or carouse through song.