Andrew Dost Quotes

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.

I am really heavy into songwriting.

Everything starts and ends with the song, and working with writers and really learning their process and craft was an invaluable experience.

I wanted to write songs which I think is a different thing. I wanted to write music that is informed by folk music. The chord progressions are obvious references.

As a kid, I used to sit there and figure out how to play everybody's song, and through learning all those songs I learned how to put chords together, and it evolved till I could say, 'Hey, I just wrote that.'

At first, I was just trying to sound like DOOM and Eminem, and then I dug out my own voice, I guess.

I actually was consciously trying to emulate bands like Bruce Springsteen, and just trying to emulate what they do structurally.

If anyone asks me about songwriting, I guess I'd say that you just gotta do it.

Working as a musician, I have to constantly generate new material, so school keeps me sharp. Reading and writing all the time helps me to be a better songwriter.

You have to have that organizational principle behind the song.

I try to find nice chord changes, that's how I love to start, and then I start trying to knock it into a song, knock it into shape.

The moment I wrote my first song, I got addicted.

I can't play a solo without thinking about John Jorgenson. I always think about what he would do.

I'm used to making songs; that's how I learned to make music. My structures will always be more like pop songs than dance tracks.

I find it really easy to write on the bass, because you kind of get straight to the point: you do lyrics and melody without thinking about decorating the song until after you've finished it.

Music really does just boil down to basically, essentially songwriting chords and melodies.

One of my big inspirations was Chuck Berry, and his playing was always about the rhythm and the lyrics. So I've always been that way in my playing, really.

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

What I used to play was rhythm guitar before I saw Jack Bruce. I said, That's what I want to do in life. He was definitely the main influence.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

Being a songwriter is really the base of being an artist, for me.

It doesn't take me long to write songs.

Popular music usually has a chorus that needs to repeat, and people need to remember the song. That's sort of the major guideline when you're writing a song.

So I learnt a few country western songs, I bought a chord book, and right away I started writing my own stuff, which nobody else did that, I don't know why.