My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.
Just as like the music industry still wishes for the days when it controlled its own production and distribution, the media and marketing world still yearns for the silver bullet of the thirty-second spot on 'Seinfeld,' even as it knows those days ar...
You can't make everybody happy. We just put our head down and went forward. We said, 'This music is bigger than all of us.' That's how we felt. We said, 'You know what? We'll prevail. We'll bet on these songs.'
The music kind of possesses me when I sing. So whenever I start to sing on a show - I mean, first, I'm nervous, and then when I get into it, it's just like I feel like I'm the person who sang the song first.
What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.
For me, living and making music, they're one thing. It's not like a job that I go to a studio to do, or a chore that I have to get myself in the mood to do, or something. It's the thing that I need to do every day.
The ballet makes us look at those bodies, it makes us listen to that music, it makes us wonder at the geometry, of the way they come together. The way that extraordinary space is controlled and given such emotional force.
I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago - you'd have to put that into better English for me, thank you - they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes.
When it comes to orchestral music, whenever I see a concert with orchestra and strings, and I arrive and there are speakers up, my heart always sinks a little bit, and I think, 'It's going to be down to some sound guy's ideas.' Contact microphones on...
The problem is that music is selfish in that you need to make it for yourself, so that you can give it away, and those two things don't jive. I needed to find the right reason to play that had the magic and mystery and excitement that made me want to...
I feel pretty used by the music industry, in that my contracts are written in such a way that I don't get paid. And that makes me wanna quit working for whoever thinks it is that I work for them. But I've clearly got a job that I can't quit.
I still maintain several different outlets of artistry, like my music, photography, writing and all those things. I don't pigeonhole myself into one thing. I do all sorts of things, and that's so important to me.
For years, I've thought about a project or a way where I could do acting and music together, and I never really thought that would happen. Then 'Nashville' came along, and it was like a dream come true to marry both of those worlds.
I just like playing music and doing it with people that I care about. It doesn't really matter where. It's like, 'Why don't we just play piano in a small bar? Why do we want to make an arena full of people happy?'
The only thing I've ever wanted to do is really make people happy, offer some sort of positivity with music that I've written. The Chili Peppers do that for people. They're already established. I still want something that came out of me, and out of m...
Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet.
But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound.
I loved the last album, and it was one hundred percent me. But this is like me two years later, who understands a little bit more about music and understands a little bit more about making an album. I wrote a lot more.
What I believe to be jazz is constructed and improvised music which is in the air right now. But I don't think that's most people's definition of jazz, you know? We don't know what we're talking about, because we don't know the definition.
Any new ideas go into PiL. My inspiration is everything that the human being gets up to. I don't listen to any music when I'm in PiL-zone, because influences can poison your well. Otherwise, I listen to anything.
I've been in very many situations where I've not liked the other members of the band or they have not liked me. I grew up presuming that's the way music was made. It doesn't need to be that way. It's taken me years years to find that out.
