If I can say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A thought which has gone into every angle. There is nothing there without an optical reason.
So slowly in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that something completely different. They were completely Art-less.
Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an opportunity even in those comedies to begin my project of American films.
I'm greedy, and I have a house to pay for and a wife. She has a job of her own, but I bleed her dry. She's on her third shift right now.
I think I'm long past the days where I would go to the store and drop a couple hundred bucks on CDs, so my playlist is gonna be pretty long in the tooth.
Sometimes I wish that applause would come just a bit later, when it is so beautifully hushed that I feel like holding my breath in the silence of the end.
I have been trying to find out exactly when listeners and performers decided that applause between movements would not be allowed, but nobody seems to have been willing to admit that they were the culprit.
But who cares? I can honestly look back and realize that everything happened for a reason. Everything that fell apart has fallen back into place beautifully and magically.
There's nothing I hate more than nothing. Nothing keeps me up at night. I toss and turn over nothing. Nothing could cause a great big fight.
I found with this record I had to really be strong-willed, because in the past I've tended to tinker and add a thing or take a thing away, and nearly always been wrong.
'Content' is a word that has never sat well with me. Like 'maturity'. They are two words I've never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling.
I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.
My high-school dream was to be in a band, pay my rent and eat - and I've been able to do that for 20 years. So I'm completely content.
Running my hands really fast up and down the fretboard... I mean, anybody can do that. It's the Guitar Olympics, and I can't think of anything more pointless.
For me, looking back is akin to being on a tightrope and looking down. It doesn't help you in the present moment to deal with what you have to deal with in order to move forward.
A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar - the range of possibilities is much broader.
My mum was too busy raising four of us to encourage my hopes. But I'm glad I had the upbringing I did. It made me a worrier and a thoughtful, curious person.
I've changed the way I look a bit but not intentionally. I've cut my hair. I've got a bit of pink in it and lately I've become a bit monochrome, wearing a lot of black and white.
Lauryn Hill is quite political and is very bold and isn't afraid of wearing her heart on her sleeve, and same with Bjork, except she is a little bit more kind of fragile.
My fancy dress costume of choice is... something 1920s or 30s, when there was still so much elegance and attention to detail. An excuse for ultimate dressing-up indulgence.
When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.
