I love fashion. For me, it's always interesting because I like to be able to mix up different styles and different brands, kind of like how my music taste or personality is. There's lots of influences.
Holland was one of the first countries to adopt dance music into their culture, and we were the first ones to have really big raves. I grew up in that atmosphere in the early 1990s, and I was very interested in how dance music was made.
My first interest was always music, and somehow that channelled itself into films and acting. I don't know what the natural transition of it was. I mean I acted a little bit when I was young and like any kid would in a community theatre.
For me, personally, the most interesting music comes from the popular sector - from film and pop music - since contemporary classical music got stuck and went into directions where it lost a lot of the public by over-intellectualizing.
We were really interested in music from all over the world. We realized that what we were doing was very close to contemporary classical music because of the lack of tonality in the guitar- the fact that I play guitar the way I play.
It's been really interesting watching people's reactions to the new music, to the old music and also watching how modern young people will be standing in front of something going on like live music, and there's a camera in front of their face.
I think the next big thing in music, and it's kind of because I come from the tech industry, is actually, I think it's the platform... Spotify is incredibly interesting. I think the platform is becoming the star.
As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.
An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.
I go to see some big shows of other bands, and I feel like I'm so bombarded and over-stimulated that I lose interest in the music. There has to be light and shade, and less stimulating moments. There has to be an arc to the show.
The interesting thing about improvisation is you're making something up in front of the audience. Now music helps you out a little bit because you have an instrument that'll separate you from the audience.
What keeps me interested is that I have to do it. It's like people wake up and they have to breathe; I have to write songs; I have to make music. That's like eating or breathing to me. It's that simple.
But I was always much more interested in reading fashion magazines than I was music magazines when I was a teenager. Just that sense of romanticism and escapism and the dream of it has always been quite alluring to me, as well as that sense of becomi...
Once I got to be about twenty-five, I got interested in the music of the time. I started smokin' dope, I started drinking, I started slowing down and trying to find myself. I didn't want to work in nightclubs.
I'm very interested in music, but I was not born musical. I honestly do think some people have the knack. I can't play an instrument. I'm a terrible singer. I'm not about to launch my album!
Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.
When I recorded Contra la Puerta, I never really thought out doing the material live. Mostly because I haven't really seen any electronic music performed live in an interesting way.
I started in high school to be interested in music and from there, I decided to study in college. Yeah, you're right, I did start late, but luckily, because of my schooling, I picked up a lot of ground pretty quick.
When I was younger, I didn't read that much. I was more interested in film and music. Now I'm curious. I want to know what it's all about.
I'm not interested in stirring anybody up through music. If you're going to stir people up, it has to be a thought process that has nothing to do with music. I see music as having to do with an internal thing. Something that stirs you up is external.
I'm always interested in mixing technology and music. You know, maybe I'll have a MIDI bass pickup at some point, I don't really think that's the direction I would want to go.
