Jim James Quotes

We played some gigs in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I really felt the group was really a band in the sense of something I could write for.

I think that was the whole idea behind doing the solo record was to be able to do musically whatever I wanted to do.

Being a rock and roll band is about spending time on the details so that you can hone your own identity.

You know, somebody mentioned that I was sort of a jazz-pop singer. And I'm thrilled that somebody would find that, at last, in my presentation, because it's such a part of where I live.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine - it kinda sucks the life out of music.

The moment at which music reveals its true nature is contained in the ancient exercise of the theme with variations. The complete mystery of music is explained right there.

My intentions have been, and are always, to just really get behind what my ideas are musically and to just ride this thing out, cause it feels good, and I think for the most part it's good music. Even when it's not, I'd like to still search for something that could be even like a little bit mind-blowing or shocking to me.

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

As opposed to touring for three years and then going into the studio and writing an album, I think this record is representative of a lot of everyday people.

I hardly ever go into the studio with a work complete in my head. It emerges from communal activity.

When I'm meditating on an idea, I try to let the idea completely saturate me to the point where I feel like I'm covering myself in it or totally immersing myself in it, so that everywhere I'm looking, everywhere I'm going, it's through the lens of that idea. And that's sort of what I do with the music - I try to lose myself in it.

I just happened to start playing music for the conceptual ideas.

It's not my style to be thinking about what a record is while I'm making it: I just write songs.

I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can.

So it was just a case of getting a bunch of songs that I had been writing for years but hadn't recorded together, and the result was My Own Best Enemy.

Ultimately, at the end of it, it's just trying to get into that space where you feel like you're hitting the right thing and you're making music. And it feels intuitive rather than being counterintuitive.

I want to try it to see what it's like and see what my stuff looks like when I take it from inception to completion.

We're approaching things quite differently this time, but it will still sound like Marilyn Manson.

I'm a pop princess at heart. Pop is about distilling what you want to say and making it easy. And the way I write isn't about making things easy. It's a weird juxtaposition.

After playing so many songs in churches for eight or nine years, I've learned what songs people react to. Then I just had fun with the arrangements. That's how this album came together.

Usually when I start a new project there's a fear of the unknown; maybe it's a band I've never been in the studio with before. People are so different. It's almost like you need to go through the process, discover and unlock what it is that makes that band that band. And a lot of times they don't know it.

With Nine Inch Nails, it's all Trent Reznor. So when we get a new record from Nine Inch Nails, it depends on what side of the bed Trent's waking up on and what he's been eating lately and what he's been into. Because he's preparing the whole meal.

I never thought of myself as being the singer that wanted to create an identity and then stick to that.