Benmont Tench Quotes

I think it's his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.

I'm not used to not having enough time to live with the songs. Usually, if I write something, I live with it for a little while.

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.

We love great melodies and great songs that have great hooks and melodies, so we start a little bit more on that side as opposed to other people that start more lyric-based. Sometimes we'll do it the other way.

I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together.

The original 'Don't Let It Get to You' started with a beat. The drums came first. All the musical and lyrical elements were written over those drums.

'Nova' was one of the tracks that inspired me to create 'Fade,' which later became 'Faded'. It has a beautiful melody, and the way it progresses throughout the whole track is just amazing!

You would find in a lot of Zep stuff that the riff was the juggernaut that careered through and I worked the lyrics around this.

Plus, we spend most of our time writing music. Most of the time is spent in the studio in my house.

I would start seeing, in just the sense I was saying now, the kind of record it was going to be and what the arrangement demands, and what my vocal part should be in the record. This was all emerging as the song was emerging.

When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.

I wrote 'Actor' all on the computer. I didn't touch any instruments until I was in the studio. So while I had all these ornate arrangements, I didn't have any songs.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

There's two facets to writing a song. There's you sitting in your room writing the sentiments of the song; the lyrics, the melody and the changes, and then there's the part where you go into the studio and you put clothing on it.

I wrote the tunes and sang only nonsense words. Then came Moore and dressed them with the lyrics.

There's always a group of songs that I'm working at. Some of them are 10 years old, and some of them are just a few weeks old. I'm always trying to adjust these songs to some position where I can bring them to completion.

'MMMBop' took about a year to actually get completed. The chorus idea had really been around for a long time, and then we built the song around it.

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.

The way that I write is I just write a ton of music in the background of my life, and then I just bring it into rehearsal. It's, like, 'Okay, guys. It goes like this. Let's smooth it out.'

Putting together a hit record is like putting together a puzzle.

Once I've got something that I feel is strong, if I get long enough to think about it, it'll turn into something. I'll start thinking about the drums - what the drums are doing, what the bass is doing. Then, if I can remember it by the time I get to a recording device, it'll turn into a song.

There's the drums, the music, the melodies, the lyrics, the production, the artwork: there are so many elements to making an album, and the drumming is just a very small fraction of what I focus on.

Usually, I write the music and am involved in the production.