El-P Quotes

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

Any good music must be an innovation.

When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting.

The combination of experience and experimentation will ultimately yield a personal sound.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

I am optimistic about the future of music.

We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

But you can't extend, or go beyond any point musically, without the basic fundamentals.

As a musician, I look for certain things that stimulate me. And what I look for is something that's an evolution on a particular genre that I never heard before.

I wanted to make good records. But my problem is I've got a low boredom threshold, so I wanted it to look and sound different with each album, which is really tantamount to suicide, cause people lose it, they lose it - they say: 'I like that, and that's not this.'

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

I'm definitely a risk-taker with my music.

No, it's not dissatisfaction that inspires me to tinker with my songs, it's just restlessness.

That's why so much of the music today sounds so much alike, because there's no in-between. So it's kind of nice to still turn some buttons every now and then.

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line.

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

I study what's happening in music. I want to sound different than everybody else.

The only intention I've ever had creatively, as a musician, is to be as different from myself as possible.

Nothing I'm doing musically is revolutionary in any way, shape, or form.

Especially with Fantomas, i'm just trying to stretch out what the band can do. Figuring out, really, on the job or on recordings, what I can or can't get away with.

If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong - you're not searching; you're not reaching for anything.

The beautiful thing about working with new instruments is that you sort of approach it with a fresh perspective.