Cass McCombs Quotes

One of the things I feel very strong about is the achievement of the Band really being a complete band.

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.

Over the years, I played with a couple of spectacular guitar players, and playing with them has made me play better than I knew how to play. I hope the same thing is true with acting.

Musicians playing together, it's a conversation, and ideally I want our conversation to be really intriguing and interesting and beautiful.

Personally, I've found one of the more stimulating ways of playing in recent times has been to kind of move outside the free improvised area and work with people who are probably improvisers but they have a particular way of working.

I was really learning my craft as a jazz singer and working with some great players and all, really growing and feeling my wings.

The record Clef and I did was just sitting there. So I said, Clef, I got a record, hit a verse on it. He just went in, messed around and ended up doing the hook too.

I kind of make music where and when I can, and I guess that's why I collaborate so much.

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.

I do want to make powerful works of art with people, but I also just want to have fun. I've never done a romantic comedy - I'm sure it would be a blast.

I'm naturally going to react to that and he'll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I'm relating what he's playing.

I really like the thing I did with Martina McBride. I had that song sitting around for a long time.

Everything I do is collaborative. It's just my way. I'm really very interested in how the other musicians perceive the song.

I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis' direction.

My method is much like choreography. I don't sit at a table. I work in a room with people.

Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can't stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That's true on record and on stage.

I try not to force my sound on everybody. I try to yield unto each artist and... I try to just support that sound rather than force a sound that might not fit.

Always try and play with as many people as possible, even if it's not your style of music, because you will learn a lot.

I'd like to produce something with Kanye. Like, my production plus his, I think he'd make something really cool.

I want to write just as much as Kanye may have for whomever Kanye has written for.

In the end, yes, I'm the singer of Old Dominion, but we're a band of great singers and great musicians, and we just respect each other so much.

I can't even begin to express the joy I get from writing songs, both on my own and with others, I hold it all sacred.

I crave the variety, I really do. I'd probably say standup as I think that's what I do best, if I may say so. But it can be a really self-absorbed, obsessive way to live your life, whereas doing theatre is very collaborative and creative and intense, I'd hate to miss out on that.

Collaboration allows me to challenge myself to find a new passion for music.