The only reason I would write a break-up song is because my own problem of allowing myself to relate to people.
In the past, the West had tried to export one formula of democracy which should fit to the rest of the world, and they discovered that this doesn't work.
I don't know if I work in order to do something, or in order to know why I can't do what I want to do.
As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.
Maybe the way we have learned to look has changed in the last 25 years, and the exotic is much more acceptable. There are many artists now, younger artists, who work out of the exotic.
The more commercial work that is happening, the more people are operating cameras and are setting up studio lights, the greater the opportunity for drama production to happen.
When I define polarities in my work, I actually create the space between things. I point to the question I am actually interested in, without naming it.
Interested listeners have only to hear the recording to find out if those guys, who go to such pains to undervalue my work, are right. All people have to do is listen to realize it is a beautiful record.
I am certainly not arguing for the de facto autonomy of the individual work, even though there is much to be said for making the attempt to see it in that light as one facet of the reception process.
Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don't have investments in.
Do you know why language manifests itself the way it does in my work? It's because I understand short attention spans.
With my guys and with the way that we live out there, we work out a lot and try to eat right, but we try to basically keep it our own rhythm and our own world.
An artist's early work is inevitably made up of a mixture of tendencies and interests, some of which are compatible and some of which are in conflict.
No, I always felt that amongst my core fans- because there was a level of popularity that I had in the mid '80s that was sort of a bump on the scale- they fundamentally understood the values that are at work in my work.
First of all, I'd like to say here the fact that I'm not naturally a craftsman has made me work very hard.
I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.
Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation.
There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
I don't want to be typecast as the 'ambient guy' or someone who only does electronic scores. I think most of the work that comes my way is because people feel they know me musically.
If there's a deadline, I work late. If not, I like to have normal hours, and get up early and work. When things are going well, I hate to quit. And then I'll work 'till exhausted.
I want to be surprised by what people do, I don't want to work with people who need to be told what to do. I want people to show me what they've got.
