We learnt a lot because we got in with real choreographers who tell you what they need from a song, because a song has to advance the story. Then real directors like Mike Nichols tell you where you can have 'B themes' and 'C themes', and we go oh yes, B themes and C themes! So we were taught in the finest school amongst the finest people. And also by the school of experience.
I was raised really strongly on The Beatles; they were huge in my family, my parents loved them, and they used to quiz me on who was singing which song, and we'd play certain records for certain events, and things like that. So I mean, they were sort of my introduction to pop music.
To me, there are 3 parts of the album process: writing, recording, and my favorite part: getting to sing the songs with the fans every night.
When I was first starting out, I drove myself around the country in my Honda Civic, playing anywhere that would have me. This is a chance to strip the songs down to their roots and let the audience hear them the way I write them.
I started taking piano lessons when I was 8 and I wrote my first song shortly after. Music was really important in my family. My grandma was a professional violin player and my parents first met when my dad was giving my mom guitar lessons.
Once I grew up and realised 'What am I doing?' I started re-listening to the music I was playing and I realised there was so much finesse - it was dynamic and simple but I wanted to be authentic to the original songs.
It wasn't like we cut songs out; we cut bits of songs, bits of action or bits of whatever. So we would have to go back in get a full orchestra re-orchestrate it, re-score it, re-record it. It's a massive job. But, if there's a demand we can always discuss it.
What's that Regina Spektor song? Museums are like mausoleums. Having your work in a museum is something we as artists aspire to, but I don't think that's something we need to worry about while we're alive. Typically your work will end up in a museum after you're dead. And maybe that's the function of a museum. It's an archive of your work after you're dead. But while we're alive, I like to see it in places where it's connected to day-to-day life and making a difference.
We had collaborated with Allen Ginsberg on one of his last projects just before he died in the spring of '97, a book called Illuminated Poems - it was Allen's poems and songs and I illustrated them. Or, I illuminated them with paintings and drawings that bounced off of them. You want the picture to relate to the text without it slavishly regurgitating it or merely illustrating it, because that's redundant. You want to show another angle of what the text is saying.
I think I deliberately sold out a couple of times. I picked the songs that I thought would do well in the marketplace, even though I didn't really love the song.
When you play the bars, you pay your dues. It does matter that you know those things [songs]. And the great thing for me, too, is that I draw on that stuff as influences. It's also stuff that you put in the tank that you pull from to make records.
I think a lot of times, artists and albums can become formulaic. You're known for a certain thing, and you continue to do that. You just change the subject matter, but it's the same song. And that's what you do.
When I feel like every day when I get up I'm writing songs, that's the time to make a record.
I've always thought, it's the artist that write the songs and make the records. And it's our responsibility to set the tone for what's happening in the industry. And I take that seriously.
Sean Taylor is a wonderfully talented modern troubadour whose sincere, thoughtful songs pull you in. I've had the pleasure of sharing the stage with him. He swings. Check him out!
I'm trying to laugh uncontrollably with whoever I'm making a song with because whatever we just listened to that we just came up with is so dope. I'm chasing that feeling in the studio, not like a trend or what's hot on the radio at the moment. It just seems like the more I do that, the better I get at what I do. I'm going to keep doing that.
It's hard to write any good song. It seems more rewarding, or maybe just easier, to write sad ones.
As a producer you can be more objective about the songs because you didn't write them.
I think you just have to have some rapport with the song.
When there's a shadow, you follow the sun. When there is love, then you look for the one. And for the promises, there is the sky. And for the heavens are those who can fly.
The moon upon the ocean is swept around in motion but without ever knowing the reason for its flowing in motion on the ocean the moon still keeps on moving the waves still keep on waving and I still keep on going
Writing every song is a little journey. The first note has to lift you.
Too many times you come across lyrics that sound like you've heard them before or you can't really relate to them. And I think that I write songs that sound fresh and sensual in kind of a layered, lush way. But I also think that they are real, and that's why I wanted to call the record 'Inside Out.'
It's pretty intense to have someone (the camera) looming there when you are singing a song but it's sort of invigorating too.
The burden of all song and praise "unto the Highest" has been that God stands for justice and mercy. Yet injustice among men is ever on the increase; the outrages committed against the masses in this country alone would seem enough to overflow the very heavens. But where are the gods to make an end to all these horrors, these wrongs, this inhumanity to man? No, not the gods, but MAN must rise in his mighty wrath. He, deceived by all the deities, betrayed by their emissaries, he, himself, must undertake to usher in justice upon the earth.
