Tommy Mottola Quotes

Freddie and Brian tend to write the majority of the material.

In the case of, like, Childish Gambino, he is someone who is a writer by trade, so he is very meticulous about how he writes his ideas. I don't do this with a lot of artist, but he would give me a treatment that he wants to do, and I'll go off that; then I'll give him feedback and pitch him my ideas.

As a songwriter, I've always loved to tell stories. But in my band, it was always about what would make sense for a band to put out.

I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying?

Songwriting is an art unto itself, not to be confused with performing.

I'm not a great guitarist, but I do bits and bobs. I'm mainly a songwriter and a composer. I've done a lot of scoring and some stuff for British pop music that did pretty well, but I've mainly been working on my own stuff with Duncan Sheik.

I've always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn't end up playing the music.

I think it's his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.

There's not a lot of thinking that I need to do away from the studio on Broken Bells stuff.

I don't think I really make singer-songwritery-type music - it's not my strong point.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.

I feel like I'm a secondary artist, a kind of a conduit for the writer, and if it's a good writer, then I have a great road map.

Well, I worked with lots of different artists, of course.

I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.

I really like the thing I did with Martina McBride. I had that song sitting around for a long time.

I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of good songwriters, and I try to actually work on the craft of writing a song rather than just leaving it up to inspiration.

I'm used to making songs; that's how I learned to make music. My structures will always be more like pop songs than dance tracks.

I love to work with producers who are very good with their chord progressions.

When I collaborated with Nelly Furtado, the idea for the song structure came from myself, but the lyrics and the ideas behind the songs came from her.

Plus, we spend most of our time writing music. Most of the time is spent in the studio in my house.

The best part of making music, for me, is collaborating and working with new people and fresh sounds and all those things that gets people excited to continue in this business that we all love so much.

I'm not really gonna stop. We've got so much stuff to do, so many songs we talked about, so many things to record.

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

I write my music.