One of the songs that stayed in my head that I really considered a lot was an old folk song called 'John Brown' - not the abolitionist John Brown, but the one that Bob Dylan has covered and sung before. It's about a boy coming home from the Civil War, or maybe World War I even, and about his Mother seeing him all destroyed.
I like my song-sequences in my movies, but one of the things I like about them, is I get in and I get out.
When I went to do my big audition with actors for Mr. Blonde, the thing that was very interesting was the first person to actually do the audition with the song, and they kind of actually acted out the whole scene, they weren't so great. It wasn't that they were magnificent, but the song, it was the first -it was all - been in my head.
I also remember a line from a song by Smog [Bill Callahan], which seems to describe the experience of a town-dweller moving to the country: "I was raised in a pit of snakes/Blink your eyes - I was raised on cake."
For myself music definitely informs my emotions. And I can literally play a song that will get me where I need to be emotionally. I don't have to think about the tragic things that happened in my life or the greatest things that happened in my life.
To the U.S. and the world, I'm just known as some funny song and some funny music, some funny video guy. But in Korea I'm doing one of the biggest concerts; it's not a dance music concert. I'm playing with the band, so I change my every song to a rock song.
I really like the P!nk song with the guy from fun., 'Just Give Me a Reason.'
Thanks to many great K-pop singers, the groundwork has been laid for more Korean songs to be readily accessible to an overseas audience via channels like YouTube.
I will bring more Korean dance moves and Korean songs overseas.
And the thing about me is, I have a lot of mellow songs, because they're the easiest for me to write. I wanted to try to make some more upbeat songs, so, I ended up gravitating toward writing songs with friends, which was a great learning process, and also we came up with great songs. Those are the songs that came out the most naturally.
Usually I will hear a sample, think of a theme and then it will take me a couple of days to write down some lyrics. Then I will decide that I hate those lyrics and rewrite. Then I will change all the music around. Then I will rewrite all the lyrics again. I am a bit of a perfectionist although you would never know it because all my songs are like chopped up and @#$%& up, but you see that's on purpose.
The people playing on these songs are from Wisconsin and Illinois and Chicago and St. Louis and there’s a certain attitude that comes across in the songs and the way that they’re performed. I’m born and raised in the Midwest, and my family’s been here for generations. This is where I’m from and how I think, and that’s reflected in the music I make.
When I perform on stage I do achieve quite a variety of ways of singing. I was interested in trying to replicate that in the studio environment. I think it is an interesting alternative position, just to stretch people's imagination, myself included, as to who is actually singing the song. It's not to create alter-egos or characters - it always feels like me, even when the voice is extremely manipulated.
I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs.
I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.
It [ "Not For Long"] was the biggest song that I've had, and I actually heard it on the radio multiple times.
When a poem might become a song, then certain parts are repeated and might become a refrain or a chorus, so they change in that way. But it's more the nature of the words and what they're saying that determines whether it's a poem or a song.
I never feel that I have to adopt a character. It's more the way I choose to present the music and that's always based on what is right for the song.
I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I'm not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano.
I think I just speak on what the regular people are going through outside of love 'cause, of course, there's always gonna be a love song, but there's so many other parts of life... being lost, feeling your way around, what you gonna do next.
When I write - I always write on my own - I demo those songs on a four-track.
With songs I almost see the images, see the action, and then all I have to do is describe it. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song.
Ideas for songs can come from something as simple as a photograph and letting my imagination run wild on an old photograph that I found, or to a film that I have seen or to just most of the time, just daily walking through life and keeping your eyes open.
It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.
Some things lend themselves well to songs, some things don't, and I'm learning that a lot at the moment. It's still a relatively new way of writing. It's only really the last five to 10 years that I've taken my writing seriously in this way, as something I can keep working toward. I think I feel myself much more before as simply a songwriter.
