Bill Bruford Quotes

I've always been in bands writing songs with friends in order to play shows or record a future record.

When you're in a band and there's five of you, you have to accommodate five people in every song.

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

I'm definitely responsible for coming in with some basic chord changes, or ideas. Everybody in the band looks to me to come up with the basic seed, so it's not very productive to come in with nothing.

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.

I met Quincy Jones in Seattle. We were kids together... liked each other when we met and have been close ever since. He wasn't writing when we met - in fact, I more or less started him off to write; voicing, harmony, and stuff like that.

With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.

But the classic Tenacious D songwriting is Jack or myself will have an idea - I might have a riff - and we'll improv. And once Jack's feeling it, we turn on the tape recorder and start jamming, improv on that riff, improv on those lyrics, and then go back and see if there's anything good in there.

I pretty much started the lyrics and I hit a roadblock and I think Kerry finished them up. Then I came back and did the ending part. The whole 'Raining Blood.' That part. But it pretty much came together easy. It's a short song.

I didn't just sit down and write 'Summer In Kingston' from scratch; it came about from a bunch of songs I already had.

I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part.

I called the guys from Promise of the Real, whom I've been playing with, and they were all on the road. Right after I hung up the phone, I wrote another song and started writing another, and I'm going, "Hey, I can't wait. I should be doing this now!" My experience tells me that when it's there, it's there, and you can't make it wait. So I got Jimmy Keltner and Paul Bushnell, two good guys, and went in and did this record ["Peace Trail"].

I've been writing a lot of songs in twos, songs that are like twins in my mind.

It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.

I do write. I actually do want to start my music as well. My sister and I are starting a band. I've been playing a guitar for nine years, and she plays piano, and we sing together. We're going to start up something soon. I mostly am writing songs right now actually, but I would love to write a script someday.

My favorite way of working is if somebody gives me a piece of music, because I'm quite limited as a player, so it's my favorite thing if somebody gives me a piece of music, and then I can write lyrics and melodies.

I like writing songs. I like the camarderie of the and. I like touring. I love playing bass. And then there's free beer.

Sometimes I'll write a song first and then I'm like, "Oh this person will be great on this song." But there are some artists I know what want, like off the top I knew I wanted Brandy and Faith Evans. Their music is like the soundtrack to my life, so it was a personal thing for me. So once they said yes, I wrote songs specifically for them.

If it came back I would be thrilled. I would be delighted to write more songs. I need them now because I want to make an album and I have to depend on other people's music, which I've done for years. But still, it'd be really nice to be able to sprinkle it with my own.

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, 'That's it! Do that again!' In those days we really used to absolutely write like that - both playing into each other's noses.

Writing a song is like - you're writing a song all the time. It's just when it pops out. It's been there all the time. It's not something that suddenly you do it. It's always there. Suddenly, it's in the right mixture inside you to come out. Usually when you're writing on the piano or a guitar, you don't write in lyrics, on their own. To me it's very boring.

I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

I think the way I write is kind of naturally rhythmic. If there's anything of my own in my writing, I think that's my own thing. Like when I start a song, I almost hear the rhythm more than the melody.

For me it's also - the music is equally as important. I mean I think as somebody who writes music, there just has to sort of be the marriage between both.