I don't particularly enjoy standing alone and recording my own voice or my own stuff. It's sometimes fun to do for demos and stuff, but I really enjoy the social act of recording records, because writing it is so lonely. And it has to be.
Recorded engine sounds, however, are a deliberate deception. They're like going to a concert and listening to a recording. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind buying a BMW recording and installing it in my '96 Jeep Cherokee.
My goal has always been to make classic records, classic albums. Sometimes the recording process and the era it was recorded in means the production leans in a particular way, but to me they are all part of the same process.
I'm very proud of my records, but my most natural creative tendencies have been in live performing. There's a beautiful element to recording and making records, but I've always felt a little shy with it.
Throughout the '50s, tons of unknown locals came through Sun to record their demos. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis all made their first recordings at the former Memphis Recording Service.
In 1980, I moved to Chicago, and I recorded demo tapes for my friends' bands, and in 1981, the first Big Black record - the first thing I did that was an actual record.
No, if it was up to me every record would be brand new studio material but Atlantic records asked me to put out a full live record because my tour really did do well last year.
I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market.
My favorite record shop was called Recommended Records, in South London near where I lived - they did all the original Faust reissues that came out in 1979, and they also did a lot of Sun Ra stuff. They were a great record shop.
It's funny - some producers ask me, 'Man, how do you work on a Bieber record? That would kill my career.' I can work on any record there is as long as they are good records and you're pushing things forward.
Remember the Stax label and how if you liked one record, you liked all the others as well? You don't talk to a lot of people who tell you how much they love their record label. I don't care how many records they sell.
After years of begging, I got my parents to get me a little Craig tape recorder, a reel to reel. Then I started recording voices, or recording Jonathan Winters off television and stuff like that.
Some people buy records just to dance to 'em. Some people buy records to listen to the radio. And there's people that buy records 'cause they listen to every song.
I wish records got made faster and looser with less thought in them, but since touring is so much more profitable than records, you spend so much time on the road that it's hard to work on them. And the records get further and further apart.
When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, every one of the speakers praised John Kerry's war record. No one said he was unfit. They said he has terrible judgment, and that's his record as a senator. Nobody questioned his military record.
It's show business. No show, no business.
I didn't have a record player.
The world is cheapened when everyone sees it with a marketers eye.
I grew up in a family business... that really has provided the core of my belief in American small business, and in America's ability to grow and operate important businesses that can compete and be successful.
I think there is a big difference between the music business and music. And my relationship is to music, not music business. I think the business will keep changing, but music won't. Music will be there.
