Jim James Quotes

The act of song writing and recording became one and the same to me; because I essentially recorded everything I did from the day I began trying to write songs. I've always had a lot to say. I'd always written poems.

For 'Narrow Stairs', the majority of the songs I brought in were guitar songs - songs we could sit in a room and just play. I can honestly say I had more fun and felt more inspired on this record than anything that we had done in a long time.

My second album was written while I was on the road promoting the first record. I tried to take my personal experiences and elevate them to universal experiences, so that I wasn't writing songs about living on a tour bus or being on a TV set for the first time.

A lot of Knxwledge's instrumentals just brought out this tone and swagger that I had played with before but had never really pinpointed before on my Anderson .Paak stuff. But then it just came so easily.

I feel like when I get the demos - I get a lot of demos - but when I get the right demo, I get very inspired. I produce around it, and it often goes very fast.

I basically make my living writing songs, so I've been able to go around in my trailer. If I got tired of a place, I could move on and roam around. It's a nice environment for writing songs, as opposed to sitting at a recording studio console all day.

I tend to play better in the studio, no pressures, just sheer volume and alcohol.

I got married and decided I wanted to do a dance record, and I didn't ever expect for it to be what it was or for the 'No Doubt' thing to be such a long break, but it was one of those things where you just had to sort of follow your inspiration.

At times, I will get in the studio and force myself to just write an entire front-to-back record, and 'Let Me Go' is one of these.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.

It's a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that's a good thing.

So I have probably 1,200 little bits of paper with notes, which when the Ambien really starts to kick in, don't really make much sense. Say what you like about prescription drugs, but they do help when you're sequencing a record.

Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't.

I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

I've had the honor to be in sessions with great artists.

One day I'll wake up and I'll have 10 or 12 songs and think, 'Oh that sounds like it could be a record.'

Things like 'Lucky Man' were never written to even be a record, let alone a hit record.

When I was making my first record there would be something that would come out that would inspire you, you know? You'd see someone on TV or on the radio.

It's not my style to be thinking about what a record is while I'm making it: I just write songs.

I always prefer shooting on locations, because when I'm at home, it's harder to sort of get lost in the world of whatever you're making. It does, it does force this bond and community amongst a group.

My influences change all the time; they have to remain current, because they're the things that capture your imagination and make you want to go into the studio.

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.