David Byrne Quotes

An album is a whole universe, and the recording studio is a three-dimensional kind of art space that I can fill with sound. Just as the album art and videos are ways of adding more dimensions to the words and music. I like to be involved in all of it because it's all of a piece.

But when I record my next studio album, of course I'll do the lead vocals.

In many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio; we build the songs that way.

There's nothing like Nashville for making records.

I had a recording contract with Capitol Records. I loved recording and being in that studio. I made four albums.

When After Forever stopped, I didn't want to first find a band, then see if I could write with them, figure that whole thing out, then record an album. Instead, I worked with people I knew would be good songwriters out of an idea how I thought it would sound like.

Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.

I have a band called M&O. We were working on our first album in 2011 or 2012. We were looking for people to collaborate with, and I met Chance through a Young Chicago Authors poetry slam.

In the mid-1970s, I even decided to make my own country album. I put the idea to my record company, thinking we'd just go into the studio in the U.K. and make a novelty album. But instead, they suggested I go to Nashville. I was flabbergasted. I hadn't expected that at all.

It's a different thing when you go into a studio and you record with the intent of going somewhere and you're marketing yourself for that direction.

Just about the entirety of the first album, 'Brown Sugar,' I wrote it, the majority of that record in my bedroom in Richmond. And all of the demos for it were done on a four-track in my bedroom. I think EMI was a little leery of me being in the studio producing it on my own, which is what I was fighting for.

I made, like, five records as Dirty Projectors before I got out of college. And then I put a band together when I got interested in going on tour around that time.

Being a guy who was a geek with tape machines in the early days and really interested in how records get made, I was inspired in particular by how the Beatles were innovating when they were making those records late in their career while using the studio in a maximal way.

We were the best of friends. We monkeyed around recording sketches and jingles in George's bedroom. On November 5, 1979, I phoned George and said 'It's now or never.' Then we formed our first band.

Making an album is always a puzzle: you start by seeing a lot of different pieces, and they all need to come together into one picture.

I still love to go in the studio and write and all that.

I used to record songs, like, play the beat from one phone and have another phone recording me and just rap. Moving from that to a studio was like, 'Damn, I never knew I could sound like this.' It was just magic.

For 'Twisted Fantasy,' I probably spent 180 days in the studio.

I make records from top to bottom. Bring the best out of the vocalist. I deal with live instrumentation on all our records.

I met Icona Pop by chance because we were both recording at the same studio. I was a fan so when I heard they were in the next room, I went to say hi. Next thing I knew, they were on two songs.

I can find myself in a situation where, by the time I'm releasing an album, I have the next one written. It is a bit old school.

When I record in a studio I don't use an amp. I go directly into the board, so I can get that very fat, full sound - which is my favorite sound.

One day I was in the studio with my cousin. My dad was on tour at the time, so just for fun I recorded some stuff with my cousin. We were just playing around. After my dad got back, one day he played what we recorded. He heard my part and was like, "Who is that?" My cousin was like, "Uh, that's your son!" So he was like, "That's hot. You wanna make a record?"

A studio is an absolute labyrinth of possibilities - this is why records take so long to make because there are millions of permutations of things you can do. The most useful thing you can do is to get rid of some of those options before you start

Now I'm at a point where I decided I'm going to be in the studio for a while, at least until I finish this record I'm working on now. I should have two, three, four of the sessions that I had that were similar to the sessions for Peace Trail before I have a complete record.