Wes Borland Quotes

Usually what I do is I write my vocal melody over guitar parts and then I come up with lyrics.

Sometimes I like to make music together with a singer or with singers.

I still feel like if I can get a song to work with, say, a basic beat, a rhythm, some chord changes, and a melody, a vocal melody - if it works with that, then I feel it's written and there's something there. So I intentionally don't get involved with arranging stuff or fussing over the sounds and the edits and the beats too much, at least not in the beginning, because I feel like then you can fool yourself that you've got something there, when you might not.

Yes, basically, like you said, I'll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that.

When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.

I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.

When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.

I tried to connect my singing voice to my guitar an' my guitar to my singing voice. Like the two was talking to one another.

And then, I was thinking of doing a record just like starting with voice, because I did this one song that was just kind of a cappella, and I did it for this art piece I did where people could come and play music to go with a voice.

The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.

We influence singing but never really songwriting.

First and foremost, I consider myself a songwriter.

That is what intrigues me; songwriting and song structure and expression.

I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.

Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.

I write the music because I can't really write lyrics. But I can write chords like Robin's never heard of. So I provide the music for them to add the lyrics to.

I'm good at melody - I'll write the top-line melody and ideal words I want to go with it. But I'm not that good at writing lyrics. I bounce those back and forth with songwriters or someone who can sing.

'Chandelier' took, like, four minutes to write the chords, then, like, 12-15 minutes to write the lyrics. Probably 10 or 15 minutes to cut the vocals.

Literally wrote 'Starboy' in 30 minutes.

'Bright Star' has been designed and the songs have been formulated around the way that I sing. That is the biggest gift of anything.

I like to always do my best to make music catchy, so I think a very catchy melody is cool.

I usually start with a lyric or a melody and then build a song around that.

I think I'm much more of a guitar-songwriter than a singer. I start with chords and then test out melodies rather than improvising over it.

I always find that, when it comes to writing songs, if the melody and the chords are working, we're 90 per cent there.

It doesn't take long to make catchy songs. That's not my problem.