Cassandra Wilson Quotes

So much of inspiration comes from collaboration with other musicians.

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.

Well, our songwriting process is pretty collective.

Joel Little and I have this certain chemistry we have when we work together.

The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don't have a band, you know.

I enjoy the collaboration. I always envied people in bands who got to have that interaction. 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.

A lot of times Mick will play me different things, or I'll listen to a cassette, and out of twenty ideas or whatever, I'll find two or three that are just blowing me away, and we'll start working on them right away.

I have always needed other musicians to bounce off.

We tend to see films as artifacts of one mind. The reality of it is, I think, when you come out here and start working, you have to learn pretty quickly that it's a very collaborative process.

In the 1990s music was a beautiful collaborative process between the composer, lyricist and director. They would exchange ideas and magic used to happen.

Keith Richards has some sort of quote that says 'it takes two people to write a song,' and I'm of that school of thought, too.

Even when I'm making my own solo records, I'm collaborating with people. It keeps things interesting for me.

I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.

I think the best work flows out of a collaborative environment.

In a band that works out well, everybody has a certain role to fulfill.

But mostly, I wrote songs and Viv wrote songs.

I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.

Being in a band is always a compromise. Provided that the balance is good, what you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration.

Sometimes two artists wanna work together, but it doesn't mean it's gonna happen, because you have to find the right idea.

Sometimes the creating that we do is creating a platform that allows other creative people to pitch in.

Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.

Just because you put super great musicians together, it doesn't mean you're going to have that chemistry as a band.

I'll come in with a string of riffs and direct the musical ideas. But you still need a band and their input to make the ideas come alive. You can't underestimate band chemistry.

I like big casts. The experience of working together, that human contact - those are my roots, professionally.

The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.