When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go... The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!
I think suicide is sort of like cancer was 50 years ago. People don't want to talk about it, they don't want to know about it. People are frightened of it, and they don't understand, when actually these issues are medically treatable.
If I had not been already been meditating, I would certainly have had to start. I've treated my own depression for many years with exercise and meditation, and I've found that to be a tremendous help.
My girlfriend is a fashion designer. She has her own company called Rachel Antonoff. She is doing a collaboration with Urban Outfitters right now, a shoe collaboration with Bass. She sells to Barneys, stuff like that.
A lot of times when I'm writing lyrics, I just think about insecurities that I might have and turn them into a scene. Some things may be true, and some things may not.
We are taking close to $10 a CD the way we are doing it, and I think that is a fair amount to split up between five guys. Each of us makes like two bucks a record.
Not that painting would have been a release. The reason for doing it is the desire to create. I've got to do it! I've seen that, I can still remember it, I've got to paint it.
I picked all the tunes before I went to Memphis, and the band was all set. Willie Mitchell is an arranger like I am, and he let me do what I had to do.
I didn't know Albert back then - I just learned to play that way. He and I were the only guys that played left-handed. Then left-handed people came from every direction.
I've wanted to do it for years, but every attempt at it has turned into another tune. We have actually taken a different approach, we're doing a lot of sampling - we're even sampling bits of Flash!
I'm not altogether sure what I'm going to do for that. I think it will be a lot more low key than the other two I've done. Dare I say it, a bit more relaxing.
Some writers would be kinder than others, I'm sure. Hopefully they might describe my techniques as a mixture of tried and tested formulas - if it aint broke don't fix it - and unexpected twists.
Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.
Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.
In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better.
Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.
When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.
When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. I don't only listen to the guitar player.
I never saw myself as a spokesman for a generation. It was all a bit heavy for me. I saw myself as a songwriter and wrote for myself, which I still do, and I also wanted to communicate with my audience.
When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I'd write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I'd sit there writing songs with my guitar.
I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.
