Billy Preston Quotes

I would probably work with Drake as he is massively inspirational to me as a writer as well as an artist. If not him, then Susan Boyle!

That's always been a dream for me, to be able to collaborate and make music with the people that inspired you to make music.

The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.

I would love to do a duet with Gavin Degraw. Or Ed Sheeran.

If I work with Bjork, then I'll be a happy soul, man.

Collaborating on 'Tusa' with Nicki Minaj came into my life unexpectedly and I wanted to keep it like that for my fans.

Selena recorded a song I had written and she left my parts in on the middle eight so it ended up being Selena Gomez featuring Pixie Lott.

It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.

I started off just trying to make a wish list for myself. I wanted to work with people I really admire myself. I wanted to work with other artists from other scenes so they could make my songs improve in a different way - people who have artistically different things to say.

The recording process was basically me meeting with different writers, going into their studio, starting a song and just hanging out and chatting and getting to know how they work. Everybody has a different writing process so there was a lot of getting to know people, which can be fun and stressful at the same time.

I don't know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it... In the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays, there's three of us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all into one album.

It's more in retrospect as I've thought about it over the years and look back at what I wrote, how I wrote things - like there's a song that Ralph Stanley later recorded with me that he had guested on my record what was called "Travelers Lantern" that I wrote as basically, you know, a hymn.

In high school no guys wanted to be in a band with me unless I was going to play bass or play grindcore or be in a scream-o band, so it was fun to finally have that experience of having my songs backed by a drummer and a bassist who were just as excited about it as I was.

Sometimes I'll write a song first and then I'm like, "Oh this person will be great on this song." But there are some artists I know what want, like off the top I knew I wanted Brandy and Faith Evans. Their music is like the soundtrack to my life, so it was a personal thing for me. So once they said yes, I wrote songs specifically for them.

If you get a song right for its usage at the time, it can be useful to others. ...Those songs are more friendly to other artists looking for material.

I did a song, "Court and Spark," for a Joni Mitchell tribute album that's yet to see the light of day. So she's someone I'd like to do something with, sure. I worked with the great guitar player Bill Frisell on Phantom Moon - that was fun. I'm such a fan; he's amazing.

John Farrar, my dear friend and songwriter/producer of most of my hits (he wrote "You're The One That I Want" and "Hopelessly Devoted to You," among others), wrote the song ["I Think You Might Like It"] and it captures so much fun and joy! Having that reunion as well, with John and John - made the project even more special!

Communicating with musicians is really interesting because everyone has their quirks and their strengths and their weaknesses.

You just do you like when you're doing any other song. It's nothing different. Some people are like "How's it like working with Kendrick Lamar?" and really, it's like working with anyone else that I work with.

The studio's a collaborative environment. I just try to let people bring their own ideas to the songs and see what happens.

So when I was working with Amy Winehouse on "Back To Black," you know, she had all these beautiful songs, incredibly well-written and just her on an acoustic, nylon-string guitar. And she'd play them for me, and then I would kind of drum up my idea of what I thought - make a demo with what I thought the drums should be doing, the guitars - like, quite a crude demo.

If you are a cabaret artist and you are mostly singing other people's songs, you're asking them to rethink a song, listen to it in a different way. The most impact you can have while asking them to re-listen to a song is if it's a song they know very well.

I approach song writing three different ways. One way is where I write the initial melody and lyrics first and then take it in to the producer to collaborate. Another way is where the producer sends me his initial musical track ideas and then I write the lyrics and melody over his track. The third way is where we just jam out in the studio and see what we come up with.

A more interesting question is not 'Why did they break up?' but 'Would they have gotten back together?' ... There's always a chance we'd work together again, but I can't see us touring. I just see us making records.

I've worked with everyone from Ice Cube to Snoop Dogg ... right across to working with pop stars like Justin Timberlake. Why those artists came to me is because they wanted my sound.