Jon Hopkins Quotes

I feel, in a way, on a record, you can be more subtle. In the live setting, everything gets amplified. The dynamics are more extreme in concert.

One of the ways to use your depth is to play with speed.

I'm an electronic guy, I'm a freak for electronic music but real instruments, the dynamic range of it, and the emotions, there's no comparison.

I was always looking for the most dramatic emphasis.

When you're listening to the radio, you're hearing dance beats, all the bells and whistles, and 'Say Something' makes you quiet and forces you to listen.

I think it's his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.

In every seed of good there is always a piece of bad.

If you love large, you've got to hurt large. If you've got a lot of light, you've probably got an equal amount of darkness.

Textures apply to everything I do. Even within my music, I like smooth things, and then hard and fluffy things, all giving them their place to shine.

I felt like I could write about quiet, self-contained moments and also about those moments when the world rushes in again.

I honestly believe that you have to be able to play the guitar hard if you want to be able to get the whole spectrum of tones out of it. Since I normally play so hard, when I start picking a bit softer my tone changes completely, and that's really useful sometimes for creating a more laid-back feel.

A hero can only be as good as the bad guy.

My quest, through the magic of light and shadow, is to isolate, to simplify, and to give emphasis to form with the greatest clarity.

Ultimately, if I'm really moved by something, it's going to go on the record and that's that.

I feel I need a lot of contrast, so I have all these things happening, but they're all necessary to make me feel satisfied. It's got to be this big pot happening, with everything boiling at once.

I realized that, for me, great records always moved me with the lyrics and the melodies. And so I said, 'I think I can do it now,' 'cause I found a team of people who understand I didn't want a record that was 'drop it, pop it, shake it' just 'cause I can dance.

I always liked the intensity of the recording.

If you have a lot of sweetness and quirkiness, someone's got to have a little bit of bite against that.

There's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.

I want to seduce my viewers and be able to hold them with the work. Much of that is done in terms of formalist ideas that I bring to the work.

As an artist, as I design and lay out a page, the less-important things, things I want you to spend less time looking at, I draw them very small, maybe even silhouette them. The more-important pivotal scenes, I draw them larger, maybe even a double-page spread.

It's a battle between record company, between producer and between mastering engineer. Because the louder you make your record in a digital process, the more dynamics are squished out of it. Nobody knows exactly what happens, but the dynamics in the performance disappear, and everything is at the same volume.

They don't bother too much with the balance and things on blues records.

I always go for that live, honest feel when I'm going for that first rhythm track. I'll never hold back on a part just so it'll be easier for me to double it later on - to my ears, it sounds sterile if you do that. I always want to get that initial track kicking and full of slurs, squeals and feel. I'll worry about doubling it later!

I like it when two sounds complement each other but are way different on a record.