When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal.
The majors, they have to control the distribution, the record outlets, the radio and, in some cases, even the venues. And downloading and pirating have also put pressure on the majors.
When I was recording from '70 to '82, I always played piano and laid the tracks down. But I used to talk to the other musicians while the track was playing.
Situation comedy on television has thrived for years on 'canned' laughter, grafted by gaglines by technicians using records of guffawing audiences that have been dead for years.
The new record started out being about loss, but it's morphed into being about how relationships go on even though one person is not in a body anymore.
When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.
When you listen to radio and hear the same 20 or 25 songs, you start hunting down your CD's. Waylon Jennings' records were always around to listen to.
One day, people in China may be able to see the records of conversations between multinational tech companies and the Chinese authorities.
In Van Halen there were moments, like in some of the ballads, I put my heart and soul into those records. Those lyrics when I sang 'em, I gave myself goosebumps.
We can't allow multinational oil companies boasting of record profits to gouge consumers... We must do what we can to fix this problem.
All of my records have been very personal, just writing more and more songs, you get better at being able to say what you feel.
I think that was the whole idea behind doing the solo record was to be able to do musically whatever I wanted to do.
I feel, in a way, on a record, you can be more subtle. In the live setting, everything gets amplified. The dynamics are more extreme in concert.
I'm a perfectionist to a default. I will drive you crazy sometimes. When I'm recording, I will try something a trillion times to get it right.
'Elect the Dead' is a rock record that takes you on a journey with different types of genres integrated, different lyrical themes digested, and many fun and colorful moments to enjoy.
Who you are as a performer is one thing, but when you're making records, you're dealing with musicians' tastes, their goals, their wants, their needs, everyone's individual pride.
I know what it takes to make a band, how they should interact, what makes a record sound like it's a band - everything having to do with a band, I happen to be into.
The first rule of rock and roll is it's all about live. Then you have to learn a second craft, which is making records. It should go in that order.
I'm not bleaching my skin, and if I was bleaching my skin and I felt like saying so, I would, but for the record, I am not.
There's a couple of tracks on the new record which is sort of using similar sort of rhythms as the drum and bass tracks but playing it all live. It's a new approach to it.
I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these forty or fifty things out and say, 'Which of these things do I want to record?'
