Matthew Ramsey Quotes

Whoever hired me might've just heard 'Refugee.' Well, I'm not the secret to 'Refugee.' The secret to 'Refugee' is the song. But if somebody really good calls me up to play on something because they like the way I played on 'Refugee,' then I wind up playing on another really good song.

I'm not like other writers. I'm not hung up on using my own songs. In fact, my sister Bunny always tells me I sing other people's songs better than my own. She says I loosen up and give the songs a different feel.

We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.

When you're writing with an artist or for an artist, you have to help them serve their vision. That's the cool part about writing songs. There are no rules.

I try to write five or six songs each year and not just in one genre.

I never had this ego where I must write everything. I'm not Bob Dylan.

Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

I always wanted to be in this role, as a songwriter. In the Pumpkins, it was always impossible because Corgan would wake up and write five songs. He was so prolific, there wasn't a lot of room for anyone else.

We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.

I didn't write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn't.

The Shins is, in a way, a recording project that turned into a live band. So I don't really keep myself beholden to any rules when I'm in the studio for Shins. I just gotta get it done as best I can.

Since my father is a musician as well, he taught me growing up that if you can play jazz, you can learn all instruments and write on them. He wanted me to be a songwriter that can do anything in any genre. I'm all about doing every genre.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

I'd always been on the giving end of music and creating.

I have a lot of friends who are involved in everything from Americana to blues to R&B to pop to country.

I can make any type of music, so I wouldn't want to describe myself as having one type of sound. I think music is about keeping it diverse.

The first record we put out on Fueled by Ramon, 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea what the term 'producer' meant. It was just us writing songs, and we are trying to go back to that - singing in a room and vibing off each other.

I just write songs whenever I feel like it, whenever they come to me.

I'm quite an eclectic musician.

At first it was my brother's songwriting and I was just doing what everyone told me.

I'm competitive with anyone who writes a good song - I don't care if it's a band or solo artist or whoever.

Americans can pretty much sing anything, whereas foreign singers are often limited in style, language, even composer.

I wasn't born with a natural talent for songwriting.

Growing up in Miami, having these different cultures and being inspired in so many ways musically has let me have a very long career, 'cause just when you think I'm gonna do this type of record, I go and do something else.

I love that I can play around with all types of music.