Krist Novoselic Quotes

For some artists the live performance is the chicken before the egg of writing or recording of repertoire. For other artists the writing or recording of repertoire is the chicken before the egg of live performance.

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.

At any given time I'm listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King's Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear... the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

Sometimes I get a lyric, and the lyric, you know, comes off the page, and goes into my brain and comes out with a melody. Other times, I may create a melody first.

When I am seriously composing, sometimes a phrase will come into my head, a catch phrase. When I was writing pop songs for a few years, as a career, separate from my folksinging career, I used to write songs for pop singers.

It's very hard to write a song alone. It's only by jamming that you can get a song together.

I met PJ Harvey when I was in England, and the first thing I want to do when I meet a songwriter I admire is to ask them how do they receive songs.

I wrote the tunes and sang only nonsense words. Then came Moore and dressed them with the lyrics.

When I'm writing with John Leventhal, the music that he's written mostly comes first. And I'll write the lyrics and the melody.

I did co-write 'Moment of Forever' with Danny Timms. He wrote the melody, and I just did the words.

When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.

The way that I write is I just write a ton of music in the background of my life, and then I just bring it into rehearsal. It's, like, 'Okay, guys. It goes like this. Let's smooth it out.'

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.

My least favorite thing about being in a band is photo shoots and video shoots. I like writing songs.

With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

I tend to start with a full set of lyrics, and then my producer, Joel Little, and I work on the music collaboratively.

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

Usually, my rhymes are just in my head. I start off with a theme, and once I start rapping and writing and singing, the chorus and all that, it just starts flowing. Then it's done in about an hour! I write a lot of songs.

I'm a songwriter; that's where it starts. I love writing with someone that shares that same feeling of accomplishment. I'll play music for my fans as long as they'll listen, but I fancy myself as a writer first.

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

Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.

It's not like making records is terrible. Still, I do find the writing of the songs and the live shows to be the things that give you the most clear picture of what it's all about.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

I'm always writing songs, and I've got a bunch that I want to record.