Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
If you want music that speaks to you, that LISTENS to you, you have to go out of your way, which I enjoy actually. I'm constantly on a private-eye kick to find the totally obscure.
The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.
I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.
To me, a big crossover was what happened to me years ago, like bringing my music in Spanish to Europe, or Asia. To me, that's a crossover because Spanish is not a language that everybody talks.
Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.
I don't have specific music for when I'm writing. I'm usually listening to the same playlist or 'artist' before I arrive at the computer as when I'm walking somewhere after leaving the computer.
I always tell myself, 'When I'm working on my record, I won't cut my hair.' I get so focused on the music that I'm not really going to the hair shop and getting cut up. I just have one thing to focus on.
I still have a passion for the music, which is such a beautiful thing. I still wake up in the middle of the night out of a dream and have a melody in my head, and run to my piano.
There is something suspicious about music, gentlemen. I insist that she is, by her nature, equivocal. I shall not be going too far in saying at once that she is politically suspect.
We're like old people now playing music. I'm so glad we stuck it out because it's a lot better. I used to feel kind of anxious. Now our apprenticeship is over.
The basic idea of a hyper instrument is where the technology is built right into the instrument so that the instrument knows how it's being played - literally what the expression is, what the meaning is, what the direction of the music is.
To break R&B into subcategories does a disservice to the music. I like to live in a zone where I can do whatever I want, where I don't have to worry about genre.
There are a lot of women at my gigs. The first show I headlined was a sea of women, which I can't complain about. I'm pleased these 18-year-old girls like my music.
Like anything important, anything you need people to hear - you've got to have music for it. You've got to make it at least a little piece of a song or sometimes a whole song.
Out of doing all that experimentation with sound I decided I wanted to do it with live musicians. To take repetition, take music fragments and make it live. Musicians would be able to play it and create this kind of abstract fabric of sound.
Jerry Bruckheimer is the most hands-on producer that I've worked with. Jerry's very involved in the music, and he's such a fan of film. When you watch him playing back the cues to the picture, he's like a kid in a candy store.
I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it's a better way of telling the stories.
I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music 'made it' the same way. It's all different. There's no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.
You get to a point where it's like you can't really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.
I worked as a production assistant on a couple of films, and finally, I got a job at an animation studio as an editor. After that, work begat work. I got into directing music videos and commercials.
