Nick Swardson Quotes

Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do - that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

You know, we never really know what we're going to write next. Which is part of the excitement when we go in and do a new album. No battle plan, we just go in and do it and what comes out, comes out.

I would just stand there puzzled, then realize this would be a great place to make a show.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

I wrote 'She's a Lady' on the back of a TWA menu, flying back from London after doing Tom Jones's TV show. Jones's manager wanted me to write him a song. If I have an idea and I don't have a pad of paper, I'll write on whatever is available. What's the difference? Paper is paper.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

You don't know what inspires you. You like to think you know what inspires you, but in the final analysis I don't think you really do. It's great to look at a blank sheet of paper, you know, and walk up to an instrument and not know what's gonna happen. It's the most challenging thing I do.

I like being in focus, in the moment, changing and adapting and creating and advancing a scene.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

I sometimes don't know what I'm writing when I start writing it, on some level.

I don't follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.

It's so funny when you're actually directing because things start popping that you don't expect to pop, and something that you think is going to pop, maybe doesn't quite have the impetus that you thought it might.

It was spontaneously composed as I was playing it. And then I added a couple of other overdub textures on top of it after the fact. But it's one of those things where I wouldn't be able to sit down and specifically write that. That's just what came out.

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

I never have a plan of what I am going to draw.

The great songs just come out. If it comes quick, just leave it that way.

I come in. I'm going to sketch, I'm going to drape, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I'm not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I'm not thinking about anything other than - I'm just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I'm just going to do it.

This is why improvisational music and comedy is so inspiring: You are seeing something being born, and that energy, there is no substitute for. These songs, most of them, are about a minute old when you hear them.

The funny thing about being creative is that, especially high school people, I kept noticing I'd always go to these certain materials. I'd always be picking up trash and picking up paper and using it.

I'm a believer in just open, free-form creativity, and you never know the surprises that life has in store, and that, purely on a creative level, there's no such thing as rules.

You don't have to have a great art idea - just get to work and something will happen. So that's pretty much my modus operandi and pretty much my principal position, such as it is.

My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation.

When I put my brush to canvas, I never know what I'm going to paint. It's like when you're walking down the street with your hands in your pockets, humming a tune, you don't know what you'll be humming five minutes from now.

In using chance operations, the mind is enriched.