Phil Elverum Quotes

There's nothing more exciting to me than using real instruments in the studio.

But when I record my next studio album, of course I'll do the lead vocals.

It was rehearsing in the studio, at which point they were setting up the sound, and once we'd got the thing together they'd actually record it, without us knowing sometimes!

If we were truly in the studio making a record, it would have been more time consuming, and certainly I would have been more involved in the writing process.

Tom would bring in songs, Mike would engineer, and we recorded about 30 songs.

I've done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I'm onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create, and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album.

I felt that the studio recording process makes you stand still too long.

Most of my early records were not cohesive at all, just collections of demos recorded in different years. 'Odelay' was the first time I actually got to go in the studio and record a piece of music in a continuous linear fashion, although that was written over a year.

It really does take a lot of time to make records, to be in the studio and do all that stuff.

On Eye of the Zombie, I had so-called studio musicians.

'Float On' was a fine song, but I was still writing the lyrics on the last day we were working on it and deciding if it was something we wanted to put on the record.

You just went right in and just recorded songs and listened them, and if there were any mistakes, then we would correct them and just went on... one take or two take.

I'd sometimes do 50, 60 takes of song.

As far as arrangements after the basic track is cut, if I'm writing a horn arrangement or playing strings, I might arrange that, plan that out. Other times, I'll just sit and roll tape.

If you talk about the 'Tango in the Night' album, the reason I didn't do that tour was because the album took about 10 months, and it was such an uncreative atmosphere.

I definitely like making music in the studio, but I never had it out to make a CD specifically.

A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time.

Singing and playing live can be difficult. Like, in the studio, I would record either the music track first or the vocal first. I don't necessarily do them together.

We rarely write in the studio. Everything's already completely arranged before we go in. That way, we can really focus on getting the recording right.

When I first started recording music, I was actually singing about microphones, equipment, recording.

When I'm making a record, I'm trying to take people through different moods.

My first CD started as a studio project and I record everything with one other guy, so I didn't have a band. That's kind of how I like to do it, though. I like to create it with one other person, this guy, Tommy English, who produces everything. And then I go out on the road with a band who interprets it live.

In my opinion, I would still like to go into a studio - because I love the environment of being in a studio - and record a great album beginning to end, but then maybe not release it as an album. Maybe put singles out there, put songs out there - either give some away or release some the traditional way.

I make records from top to bottom. Bring the best out of the vocalist. I deal with live instrumentation on all our records.

Everyone always tells you about how amazing recording their first album was and how they'll always look back on the 'process' with fond memories. I will look back on it as an extremely stressful time that somehow also managed to be extremely boring.