Peter Maxwell Davies Quotes

You always wanna make the best record you ever made, and if I feel like I didn't do that, I wouldn't put it out.

I don't want impersonators playing our music badly.

The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.

To do it always right, that is what music is to me.

You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.

The only time I'm miserable is when I can't keep an instrument in tune.

I'd rather not make films than make bad ones.

All the arts, to varying degrees, involve some kind of a compromise. This being so, how far need the radio dramatist go to meet the public without losing sight of himself and his own standards of value?

I do feel almost violent when I'm watching things that I don't think are good enough. I get furious for the audience. I want to say to them, 'This play is not supposed to be like this. They've got it completely wrong. You should be electrified by this.'

I expect the audience to come up to my level. I am not interested in compromising my music to make it palatable to an assumed sub-standard mass.

When I write a book... it's the same essential approach to music as with books. It has to be something I want to hear or read. Hopefully the audience comes along, since that's the only way you can write righteously. I have to ask, 'What do I want to hear?' not 'What do people want to hear?'

For me, it was a lot of pressure to make another movie after 'Inglourious Basterds' because I didn't want to do something wrong. I wanted to have a beautiful project for another American movie.

It's one of the things that looks good written down, but the reality is that you think about the pieces you're doing and try to bear in mind everyone in the audience.

It's important for me to put out things that I think are good - I want to be a fan of my own stuff. I also want my live shows to be really awesome, and dance is such an important element for me and my performances.

If you want to be a legitimate artist, it's more important what you say no to.

I think most artists would be happy to have bigger audiences rather than smaller ones. It doesn't mean that they are going to change their work in order necessarily to get it, but they're happy if they do get it.

I've attended many concerts where I felt let down and I was wishing it would be something else. Not that it's their duty to please me, but at the same time, I think a lot about what it's like through the eyes of the consumer, the fan. I want not to pander to the audience, but to be aware of them.

I just want to make something that is true to itself and that interests me; otherwise, how can I have the audacity to think it's going to interest anybody else?

I think sometimes I write to impress my influences. Whether they're actually acquaintances of mine, people that I think will hear the record or not, I still write - not to imitate my influences - but to write something that would live up to their standards.

I do admit to being challenging, but it's always for the work, it's never personal. I will walk out on a scene if it's all lit and ready to go but it's not happening.

The music stuff has been very difficult. It's got to be right, and even then, it better be on key.

Hats off to Julian and Johnny, the producers, for sticking to their guns with the five-season story arc of 'Merlin'. It would have been too easy to give in to demand and stretch the show on beyond their original plan because of its incredible success.

I've been offered starring roles in horrible movies, but I just didn't want to do it. I don't see why you would.

The worst thing you can do after a test screening is slash it for the lowest common denominator.

Every riff had to be perfect and heavy, collectively what we wanted it to be. If there was one person in the room who went, 'Heh, I don't think it is there yet, guys,' we'd scrap the whole song. I think that took a little bit of songwriting maturity for us.