Imogen Heap Quotes

If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time... evaporates.

I start a lot of songs and throw them out because the energy is not right. It's almost like the file becomes cursed. I have to delete it.

Albums take a lot out of you.

I'm still shocked when people say, 'You haven't done a studio record in 20 years.' I try to make excuses for it, but the truth is I just wasn't with it.

It's getting harder and harder to feel inspired to spend six months on a record.

When you're making an album, it's, like, exciting every night you make something new, but you're the only one who gets to hear it.

The whole idea of doing an album is overwhelming sometimes. But, I get inspired when I get inspired and that's when it flows easily.

I wasn't letting people in with the music writing process, and for a long time, I thought I was hard to work with.

I have tried to write songs quickly that get scrapped. I've also taken a long time on songs that get scrapped because you can over-think something, and you've squeezed the life out of it. As opposed to work of art, it looks like a really great work of craftsmanship.

Sometimes something will come along, and it feels easy and sometimes you'll get 85 percent there on a song and the last 15 percent will elude you for three years.

Playing live was always definitely a lot more fun. You picture it: working alone in the studio eight or 10 hours a day with nobody else there, being frustrated and driven crazy by all of the things that you have to deal with, vs. thousands of people screaming and singing along with you playing.

I heard some stuff recently from Julian Casablancas, and his solo stuff is amazing. If I could write with anyone, it would be him.

A few years ago my goal was to try and get the goddamned album made, which put me in a real bad frame of mind.

I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.

I love writing music, but it seems I'm always writing words, so I don't get much time to do it.

I think, taking too long to work on a record, you sort of lose some of the feeling, so I write as fast as I can; it's just this manic phase where I'm by myself and or on tour, and I write, and I write.

You have to insulate yourself - I'm talking about from everything, people can be talking to you and you won't hear 'em - that's how you write a song. And I haven't been able to do that over here 'cause I'm so busy and then, when I am off, I want to get away from music.

I write by myself and then deliver the song. Everybody knows, 'Leave Ester alone when she's in her zone.' Give me a studio and the tracks, and I'll call you when the doctor is done.

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.

No one stopped me from playing when I was alone, but there were times when I wasn't able to, though I wanted to... There were times when nothing played back. Writers call it 'writer's block.' For kids there are other names for that feeling, though kids don't usually know them.

Writing music and lyrics, you tend to become a control freak - sitting alone in your room with a bare light bulb over your head, writing communist manifestos.

'Are 'Friends' Electric?' was two songs: the verse part and the talking part. Two different songs I couldn't finish. One day I was playing the main verse part of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and after a few minutes I got frustrated, as normal, then started to play the other song, and realized they went together.

When I think about that first DeBarge album, I remember being so green... just pristine. Nothing mattered to me but writing songs. I remember staying locked up in a room with my piano and just singing and writing songs all day long. I remember being a perfectionist about it... wanting to change this and fix that.

I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all together, because you go nuts working if I had to finish an entire project all within my own head.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.