Chris Hardwick Quotes

I've done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I'm onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create, and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album.

U2 albums never get finished. They just get released.

When we were writing 'In Our Bones,' everything was bubbly champagne all the time so that's what ended up on the record.

I had a project called 'Cover Art,' which was the first project I did under the new name Anderson .Paak. I went through this process where I was recording new music for about six months straight.

When it's me in my living room, it's pretty pure, and then what gets recorded involves more people, and it keeps escalating from there.

I'm just doing what I do best and that's what makes good music, and that's how you can relate to people.

A big part of making an album is that you want to have enough material - you want to have enough stuff for people to hear and know that it represents you.

With my records, it's just a matter of trying to create something fresh for myself in a very finite context, which is the pop song. I don't know anything about the people who buy my records, and what, if anything, they get out of them.

Well, I don't let anyone record with me that is not a fan of mine or believe in my music. Everybody that records for me, from Bob Dylan on down to George Jones, everybody loves me and my music, and I knew they would do their best that they could do, and they did. I didn't doubt them a bit. There's some country people that I wouldn't want, which didn't record with me.

I think it's really important to not talk about how you're going to release something until you've finished it. People are like, "What are we going to make? What are we going to do with it?" and it's just like, "I don't know, we're just making music. Then we'll talk." You can't always write something you're happy with; you can't force it.

I definitely use "smiling while rapping" as a tool in the booth. I want to have fun while recording. At times it can get tedious and stressful when it's not sounding the way you heard it in your head, but you've got to remember to just smile and appreciate the fact that you're even in the booth and there are people who want to hear your art.

I don't like to disappear between records. I like to play shows while I'm making the record.

Just keep putting out music. Don't think whether it's a hit or not and people will get you.

I love music. I've just been putting studios together, here and at my house in New Jersey and so I can always make music and express my ideas and work with people to fine tune them to where they need to be.

There's not like a science to it, necessarily, but I'm also the kind of person who spends a long time in the studio. I will spend my entire advance just getting it done, which is probably stupid, but I don't have extravagant taste. I mean, I paid for it, so there you go. Why not? The recording process is also very fun.

I certainly believe that creativity must be an experience. If I'm to steal time away from people, we should give them something to react to.

When people ask that question, it's very hard to nail down a formula or a circumstance that I always write in, but I definitely do believe that there have been moments, musically, when I have channeled something, you know?

I don't make demos. I don't have the interest or the energy or the time.

Like most writers, I sit in a room and scribble a story and you don't have a connection with the people who take your story, whether it be to the stage or to the screen.

I've done so many albums where I've been in the studio for 14 hours a day for six months just trying to come up with things on my own. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself.

People who mock rap and say, "I don't like it," they should go and check out Kanye [West] in the studio rapping, or Marshall, Eminem, when he's in the studio. It's a phenomenon. Don't knock it until you've seen it. It may not be your cup of tea, but don't ridicule it.

My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.

It's just hard when you've spent so much time on something, writing and recording, laying the vocals, getting the hook right, getting the beat right, making everything sound right - you spent a freaking week trying to make it sound perfect, and someone comes along and shoots it down.

The fact of the matter is, if you're not putting out stuff that people are feeling, then your record label doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

I don't ever try to anticipate my audience. I just write the songs I want to write, and hope people like 'em.