Colin Hay Quotes

Our albums just tend to be collections of songs really, because we all write in the group, all four of us.

Everyone's [ me, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty] equally involved in all the writing. Normally we'll start with a sample or a drumbeat, or a synth sound or something like that, and that will spark the initial idea. And then we'll write an instrumental sketch of a song, and then we put on a nonsense vocal melody, which is always my favourite bit because it obviously sounds amazing.

I don't know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it... In the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays, there's three of us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all into one album.

I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.

We really try to make sure that the band writes the songs, not just one person.

We all write the music, and then Mark and Tom write the lyrics.

I've always written by myself. I've never been in a situation where the whole band sat in a room and wrote a song. I don't work that way.

It's not like I'm writing full songs or full parts and setting it aside for Slash because, generally, I like him to make the first move and hear where he's coming from and what his concepts are, and then I build from there.

Static-X has never been a band where the four guys get into a room together and jam and write songs and all that kind of stuff.

There are two things John and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song.

If I'm not writing about myself, then I sit down with people I really dig writing with and throw 'em out and see if something sticks. Their brain plus mine hopefully will make something interesting and cool and it will just snowball and we'll have a unique song by the end of it.

I write each song individually and each one calls for individual musicians, You sit around and wonder who can we get to play a Neil Young solo, and then you realize there's a good chance you can get Neil himself.

Each one of us had a little story to tell and each recording was based on that. Lou played all of the music but we both sort of kicked around some cords during the writing phase.

It's funny; Luther and I have written many songs together, but we've never written songs in the same room.

Well, our songwriting process is pretty collective.

I wasn't writing the music. Ed would write a piece of music. I'd listen to it and come up with a melody and then we would arrange it. We'd put it together and I would write lyrics to my melodies.

I've actually thought very little about solo work up until just very recently. Most of it is because in my band, Incubus, it is very much a collaborative effort. I do what I do in the band, and everyone plays their respective parts, but in the end, we are sort of a democratic process.

Usually I write the songs at home and then I bring them in to the band; when we play them as a band, that's kinda how we figure out the feel of how they're going to be presented on the record or live.

When you have four guys in a room writing songs, it different. It's great - that's what makes a band a band. Audioslave was great.

When Sonic Youth writes music, we write everything in a very communal way. It doesn't matter who brought something in initially; it all gets transformed by the band.

I've been sort of writing sketches for songs on my own forever and putting them down on cassette tapes. Yet for years and years and years, my main songwriting outlet was as a member of Sonic Youth, and for most of our time together, our best songs were written in a group setting, where the four of us were getting together in a room.

In our band, every member has input, but me and Steve do the majority of the writing. We start the songs, the rest of the band help us finish it.

When I write - I always write on my own - I demo those songs on a four-track.

It's funny how that comes up, because sometimes I'll write something and I'll think, I don't know if that's a film or a play, and then other things I feel very strongly about them just being plays - they feel very theatrical to me.

Alice and I, we'd met before, but we were able to kind of sit and chat on the set of Dark Shadows, and talk about maybe writing some songs together. We started doing that, and then one thing led to another and it became this Vampire project - because he was telling stories about all those days, which were fascinating.