J.I.D Quotes

I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music.

It's amazing to me to see how bands evolve and how they take all their influences and come up with their own sound.

I'm just experimenting with every different type of music you can imagine and seeing where my voice lies and what sounds best. I think when I do finally do the album it will be very eclectic - just loads of different stuff on it. That's what I am hoping.

When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.

After a couple of failed attempts, I came up with a weird tuning where I was dropping the G string down a step so that it became a seventh, and it got me to a place where I could play all these figures fairly easily. It was not an easy thing to work out.

I think I've always approached making albums pretty much the same way. I'm just looking for a mixture of songs and topics that aren't the same thing over and over.

I'm the renegade of funk. I've made house, techno, rock, funk, reggae... That's why I've been on so many different labels.

I love music, that it changes so much, but I also want to keep a bit of the country roots to make it country. I don't want to go too far away from it, or I would do pop music.

What I do and where I come from, the kind of music that I'm making, it's definitely U.K. If I turned around and did a tune with Timbaland, it would be amazing, but it would be me kind of leaving where I'm coming from.

I listened to the rock music of that time, but as you know and can easily hear: my music of that era had nothing to do with the common music of this era. I was experimenting, I was searching for something new.

I never thought that I would be creating my own 'cross-over' genre. What I did was very real and organic. I have worked in so many different styles so it all just came together.

My favorite band of all time is The Clash. The thing I love about The Clash is they started out as guys who could barely play three chords. They dabbled in reggae, punk, rap, jazz. They came to a sound that could only be defined as The Clash. It was impossible to say what it was. I admire them for that.

At first, I found the music I was making really hard to find a home for. I felt like my attitude was really British, but not the actual sounds I was making. Back in 2003, when I made 'Galang,' there were no clubs that had an 'anything and everything' attitude.

So it's more the musician in me that makes me stretch out and try different things more than anything. But, like a lot of guitar players, I have one certain niche that's my thing that I'm better at than the others.

I think every time, before we do an album, we have a discussion where we sort of consider the idea of doing something radically different.

I like to experiment when it comes to music.

I just like blending all the genres together but blending them up in a good way. I try to be as free as I can with it.

I'm influenced by a lot of different genres of music. So I'm constantly trying to rework production and make things interesting in the live show and on records.

I try to do records sometimes that have a different bounce - maybe it's a Southern bounce or something.

I wouldn't categorize myself as R&B or hip-hop. I don't really know how to categorize myself. I'm still working out where I fit with that stuff. I kind of think of myself as pop.

The thing is that when I'm making music, I'm not really chasing that sound - the Atlanta sound that we hear a lot.

All the big loud housey songs came from the idea of 'I want to create the same song over and over again.' Except that I've created each one in a different location, or a different mindset.

I've always had influences from all over the place, like Mr. Bungle and Primus. As a band, we try not to focus too much on where it's coming from, because we're always listening to music.

I could have pigeonholed us and wrote a whole record like 'Pumped Up Kicks,' and we would have been this breezy, nostalgic West Coast Beach Boys recreation band. That's not the type of writer I am. Once I try one style, I move on.

When you say, 'Man, what kind of music does Outkast make?' You be like, 'They make Outkast music.' What kind of music does N.E.R.D. make? They make N.E.R.D. music. I want to be one of those people, because there's so many layers to the music I create that I don't want people to expect me to do one thing.