Zaytoven Quotes

'TTM' started off being a feature. A producer wanted me to just hop on the beat, like a Diplo type of thing. When I recorded the song, I liked it a lot, and I figured, instead of them paying me to do this, I'd rather just use this for my project, and we can just get money together.

Being in a band is far more than playing an instrument. It's surviving. It's getting an album together.

I'm not a hustler. I don't pitch songs. I don't ask people to write with me. It's not what I do.

Starting a band is the easy part. Once you've formed the band, you have to tell a story, and that story requires songs. And not just good songs, but great songs. After a while, great songs won't do - they have to be the best. Success doesn't make it any easier. Each time I start a new record, it's a brand-new search.

You have to do a show, an interview, you've got to go straight back on the road to another location, make a track and edit things like footage etc. It's non stop. I really respect the hustle and work rate of Chipmunk, as well as N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder.

There's timing. And then there's also certain people at the record company who worked incredibly hard and were incredibly enthusiastic about what I was doing.

I got caught up in doing records for other artists. I just stayed behind the scenes, and time just kinda passed.

Before 'The Vampire Diaries,' I was making beats, which is how I got will.i.am's attention, and I went on tour with him.

When I first got into the major label system, they were like, 'Hey, you're great - now write with a million people so we can get songs.' That was something I hadn't done before, and the songwriters I was working with had worked on some massive numbers - like 'True Colours.' One of the guys wrote 'Livin On A Prayer.'

I never got into this business to do interviews. It was always about the music.

Sometimes when you get in this game, you think that you're going to take off if you do a song with someone big. But that's not the truth. Everything with you got to be good - the visual, the push, the production.

I'm not a hit machine.

One not-to-be-mentioned major said they would sign me if I worked with a team of songwriters to help me finish songs, ha! Of course, in hindsight, I should've done it just to see what that would have been like.

I did a track with Khao, out of Atlanta, who's worked with T.I. Did a track with Maylay, who did a lot with John Legend's album. I got in the studio with Kanye West; we did a song. The dedication for the career takes a lot of work, but if you love it, it's worth it.

I'm a recording artist, a performing artist and a producing artist. All those things have everything to do with the outcome of my shows. I get myself studying every part of the game and not everyone has the characteristic to do that. In my mind, you need all three to become an artist.

A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics.

I'm so hands-on and involved in my own music that I feel like if I put the same effort into another artist, then I can definitely cultivate something great.

I'd love to work with Drake. I got Drake beats.

When we got with Dallas Austin, he was just getting on. He was kinda like the fourth member of TLC.

I first heard Trouble in 2008. At that time I was on my grind, trying to work with all the next-up artists. I had sent him a couple beats; he had done a couple songs. We was always around the same age.

To reach the highest level you have to not just have a dream and focus but you also have to make sure you are writing great songs, and if you feel they're what you want to represent you, that is key. But getting out on the road is key. And get your music out there. Maybe something catches, maybe it gets picked up and used on television, you just never know.

Whenever I fill out the job description I put 'songwriter', never 'singer' or 'artist.' Singers come and go.

The first record we put out on Fueled by Ramon, 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea what the term 'producer' meant. It was just us writing songs, and we are trying to go back to that - singing in a room and vibing off each other.

If you want to be a singer, you've got to concentrate on it twenty-four hours a day. You can't be a well driller, too. You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it.

I wrote my first song, 'Conversion', to this little hip-hop instrumental. I went to an open-mic, plugged my iPod into the P.A., and sang over the beat.