Logic Quotes

I'll come in with a string of riffs and direct the musical ideas. But you still need a band and their input to make the ideas come alive. You can't underestimate band chemistry.

It's easier to collaborate with instrumentalists than singers; they know exactly the sound that I need.

I think John Williams, him and his team, have been incredible orchestrators. By that, I mean how he chooses which instrument plays which note.

I write the music, produce it and the band plays within the parameters that I set.

That said, everything's important, and every musician who plays on the record is an integral part of it.

For me making music is part social, part interaction, part collaboration.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

Who you are as a performer is one thing, but when you're making records, you're dealing with musicians' tastes, their goals, their wants, their needs, everyone's individual pride.

I am just the band leader, and I just keep everything in tune.

I had a really pleasant time composing music for 'Raaga.'

We kind of established in Sons of Apollo right from the get go that it would be a very collaborative process musically, but after that, I was going to take the reins and control everything else beyond that the way I did with Dream Theater.

I like live musicians and personally orchestrate about 80 to 90% of all my scores.

I don't play any instruments. I don't produce. I don't know which keys or chords I am using, so, in essence, I need the band and the production team - otherwise, I am just some guy with a hat and a song.

I like to collaborate with other people for studio recordings because I believe collaboration, in any form, makes music better.

I put all those synthesizer sounds behind "Decoy" and "Code M.D." A lot of things we write together. A lot of things are his, but they don't have that thing I want on the bottom. I often tell him, I say, "Bobby [Irving], if there's a melody, there's another one somewhere that goes with it."

I talked to the record company about what I had in mind. They said they wanted something lush. I figured the best thing to do was let them hear what I had in mind.

Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.

I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.

If you're going to start with melody you'll need some tympani, I think.

I consider myself a composer.

If I'm working as an engineer for another band, the responsibility for brilliance pretty much rests on their shoulders. I think I'm pretty good, but I'm not good enough to turn a trout into a sausage, or the other way around.

When we came into the studio I became more and more me, making the tracks and choosing the musicians, partly because a great deal of the time during Bridge, Artie wasn't there.

Jeff Lynne is an arranger, and I think it's probably much easier for him to go ahead and play a part himself than to try to show somebody else what he wants. But it's hard for me to say; I barely know Jeff.

The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.

Writing music and lyrics, you tend to become a control freak - sitting alone in your room with a bare light bulb over your head, writing communist manifestos.