Jay Reatard Quotes

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

Every album is just a greatest hits of whatever songs are on a pile when I go in to make a record.

Success is good, but I have seen the other side. I don't think much about it. I just work towards making a good melody, with catchy yet meaningful lyrics, and as I'm a music producer and arranger myself, I know the sound I need.

I started rapping at the age of 12. That's when I wrote my first song, but I was more intrigued on learning how the recording process works: how do you create music and what materials I needed. So I educated myself musically so that I could focus on creating my own.

What happens with writing a song and demoing it, for me the demo always becomes the master.

When you're sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice - you've gotta figure out how to make a song: 'I've gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.'

I like being in a recording studio. I like watching a song go from the simplicity of the original music.

'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' took a year to record; that's why the playing on it might sound somewhat labored. 'Balance,' on the other hand, was written and recorded in only four months, so the whole process was quicker and more immediate.

Unlike motor sport, I didn't get into music for the live performances. I like writing and studio work and seeing how a song can come to life.

I never write from concept. The beat is the beginning, and then I fill in the rest of the song into what it should be.

I usually enter the studio with a mix of songs that I've been listening to that are relevant to the sound I want to achieve.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

In 2008, I was more just thinking about using the touchscreen for writing the songs. From there I started thinking about how I visualised music.

I don't ever land on an album title until I know exactly what's going on the record, because you never know until it's all said and done.

I love making records; I love making music; I love writing songs.

When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it.

I've always been interested in what happens in the studio.

When I write a record, I don't even touch a computer. I don't even bring my cell phone.

I realized I liked being in the studio and working on translating the ideas into recordings.

I've always been a fan of just writing songs and making music.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

I get the music, I get the beats. And I go to the studios and write the lyrics.

You can get too bogged down in technology and you can sort of forget what it is you were trying to do. And with the Pet Shop Boys it's primarily about the songs, it's about song writing.

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.

Back when I was jamming with Axl and the guys they had boxes of cassettes with song ideas. How do you know which ones you like now when you have that many ideas.