Daron Malakian Quotes

I try to not go, 'I'm writing a pop song.' Music is inherently genre-bending.

Yes, basically, like you said, I'll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that.

Listen to the Bee Gees and you can learn to be a great writer.

I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics.

I could tell it was a popular move as a writer to walk down the bass lines while you were writing a song.

Anything is food for starting a song. A song can start with a lyric idea or a melody or just a sound that inspires.

Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.

Composing is what I love most from what I do. Each genre has a unique expression that you cannot supplant with another. All the records co-inspire each other though they are not tied conceptually in any way to another.

I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.

So when I started writing my own stuff, it was with a lot of combinations and time changes and power.

Breaking Benjamin, talk about songwriting, I mean, some of the greatest songwriters of the modern era. And, obviously, it's a little heavier.

Whichever chord progressions move me, whether it's rock, jazz, doo-wop or soul, I'm going to put it together and not be worried about whether people can put it in a lane or not.

I actually wrote the lyrics for 'Goodbye' in 10 minutes.

Songwriters, we're always looking for new concepts, fresh concepts, and there are only so many ways you can talk about partying, really.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I usually start with the words. The rhythm of the words gives me the rhythm of the song, and then I look for the musical highlights in it to carry it.

The tapes we were making would jump around with different styles, just quick parts of different songs. Hip-hop to jazz to funk to whatever else. And in a way, 'Check Your Head' ended up being like one of those pause-tapes.

I'm without a doubt a producer first. The lyrics happen towards the tail-end of the process, mainly because they're more stream-of-consciousness. It's very rare that I'm going to tell a really concrete story.

Lyrics are so important, but they're really underrated.

I like pop music, and I like really weird, strange stuff. It just didn't feel like there was anyone doing both.

Songs should have an infectious melody and rhythm.

That's kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock 'n' roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin' through.

I'm actually doing what I like doing, which is mixing opera music and classical music with soul and folk. And I was writing and talking about what I've actually experienced, and I don't think that's very common.

I've always had an ear for melodies, and they veer pop. My lyrics are more country - what I love is the storytelling and the structure, how tight the rhymes can be. But pop melodies have always been intrinsically linked to my writing style.

That was something we were trying to figure out: Are we allowed to do a jazz song? Are we allowed to do cabaret? Just from hearing the Beatles, it was like, 'Well, they did it. It's okay to write something other than a standard rock song.'