Kenny Beats Quotes

I enjoy the collaboration. I always envied people in bands who got to have that interaction. I've done so many albums where I've been in the studio for 14 hours a day for six months just trying to come up with things on my own. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself.

I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before. I'm still very excited by an amazingly written song, so that's really the thing that I work on when I make records with people.

I'm never happier than when I'm being creative, whether that's with Coldplay or other artists. I just love being in the studio.

I'm always creating. Whether I'm writing a lyric or making a beat, every day I'm doing something.

Sometimes I go in and try to write beats, but I just trash 'em, and then the next time I go in, I'll make like six beats - six legit, nice beats. I'm really particular with how it needs to sound.

If I ever do meet John Mayer and we end up in the studio, hopefully he'll bring the guitar, and I'll make a beat to it or something.

I'm always making beats, and when I can hear Ezra singing on one of them in my head, I send it to him. That's one of the ways that we've always worked together.

You should find the dopest producer in your area, and that producer is always going to want songs written to his beat.

I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs.

Larry only ever wrote one song, and he wrote that with Tony Kaye, I think it was, from Yes.

I heard some stuff recently from Julian Casablancas, and his solo stuff is amazing. If I could write with anyone, it would be him.

I love writing music, but it seems I'm always writing words, so I don't get much time to do it.

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

I don't have any particular methodology, to tell you the truth. 'Silver Blue' took exactly the amount of time to write that it takes to sing it, and 'Prisoner in Disguise' took about a year and a half. So you just never know.

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

I don't really think about what the subject of my next album will be. I just know that I'm going to make another album.

I really had a great time working with 'Modest Mouse,' just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.

'White Rabbit' was mostly done in about two days, the music in about half an hour. The music is a 'Bolero' rip-off and the lyrics a rearrangement of 'Alice in Wonderland.' You take two spectacular hits and throw them together, and it's hard to miss.

When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own.

A lot of times Mick will play me different things, or I'll listen to a cassette, and out of twenty ideas or whatever, I'll find two or three that are just blowing me away, and we'll start working on them right away.

'Gorgeous' was one of those records that, as soon as I heard the beat, I was like, 'Man, this is the one. This is that 'This Can't Be Life' Kanye beat.'

It's very hard to write a song alone. It's only by jamming that you can get a song together.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.