If I had to play only for people who liked the music because they heard it on the radio, it wouldn't make me happy. That's why I'm working so hard to have, yes, a profile as an artist, but also a profile as a DJ.
So dance music is now pop music. So now, as a dance producer, what do I have to do? So I'm starting to do alien music, because pop is not pop anymore; we need to go alien to be independent.
That type of autograph, pictures and apparel thievery was not part of what I grew up with. I loved the artists and their music. I would be thrilled to meet them, but the thought of getting a scribble or stealing an article of clothing never occurred ...
When I was 3 or 4, I seemed to be bursting with music. They played Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra in the house, so I learned my vocabulary from song lyrics - I was literally singing before I was talking.
My father has been a voice of encouragement in times of desperation for so many people. But he died when I was so young that, for me, his music has been a way for me to get to know him better.
Dancehall has always had a homophobic problem, but you go to dance parties in Jamaica, and some of the biggest dancers are kinda gay, just not outspoken about it. Dancehall was the first kind of music I was DJing, and it was always more about the rhy...
I want to make hand-held music, undiminished by the need to make everybody in the world listen at once. The goal is to ride into the sunset, stereo blasting, and all of what's got you worried will disappear in the rear view mirror!
I work very closely with my publisher and just give them tons and tons of music, and then they link that with different songwriters and stuff. I'm basically a workaholic. So, I figured I might as well just start working outside.
I'm not a big equipment guy; I think that people are a little bit shocked by that. I really don't care about gear in general. I care about people and their intentions to make music - it doesn't matter what equipment you have.
I'm so into music that I just stop and listen, whenever there's music on. That's the problem with being a musician for so long. I can get lost in the bassline, fascinated with the arrangement, curious about the production. I can't shut it out.
I said to myself a long time ago that I didn't want to be that hanging-on-for-too-long, aging-rock-musician guy, and that's why I sort of got away from music.
I start really missing London when I go away. I have a little flat, but very central. I live above a pub and you'd think it'd be a nightmare, but I like hearing the music and it's quite comforting.
I just want everybody to know my music and get to know my squad, Remy Boyz; just to show people New Jersey. New Jersey got talent, too. I mean, everybody sleeps on us, and they put us as the underdog.
I would like to think that Ben and myself have begun a partnership that will take us into different areas of music that we can continue to write, enjoy and keep me involved with music other then what I do with RUSH.
I'm not a fan of anybody music who I feel like a sucka. I don't listen to you. They play you in the club, you can have the #1 jam, but if I know your character, how can I listen to your music?
'Saturday Night Live' was actually started with a show that Lorne Michaels and I did at a summer camp called Timberlane in Ontario when we were 14 and 15. We would do an improvisational show with music, comedy and acting.
I discovered the same thing Gram Parsons did, that soul music and country music are practically identical. Based off of the same chord structures, and the songs are of heartache and loss. The main connection is they both came up in church.
I think that technology has both introduced new sounds but also allowed an increasingly painterly approach to recording music as you can now paint over what you've done and more and more refine an existing performance.
Absolutely, I grew up listening to soul music. People like Stevie, Aretha, Ray Charles, Michael and Prince. My parents' record collection was all I had when I was a little kid. If it wasn't that, it was something else in their collection.
I'm busier than a busy person. People aren't scared to play this raucous, harsh music over radio speakers, so I think it's the perfect time to get in with some real serious, heavy bands.
During the writing process, I tend not to listen to too much music. I obviously wear a lot of influences on my sleeve, but if I was listening to too many records, I would turn into too much of a monkey.
