Johnny Cash Quotes

My approach to recording and all that is pretty organic. It just has to do with all the songs I wrote; go in and record them.

In Mudcrutch we all wrote songs, and when it got to the focus on Tom and the Heartbreakers, I kept writing songs, but it wasn't anything that was up the Heartbreakers tree, I didn't think - and I don't think they did, either. So I kept writing songs for the hell of it, but I didn't want to make a record just for the sake of making a record.

I have to be involved. Whether it's me writing by myself or with other people, I definitely want to have my hand in the creative process. That's part of why I got into music in the first place.

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.

With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.

I always like to write the songs, and they get turned loose into the world, and who knows what happens to them. That's the joy of being a songwriter. You get to hear what other people do, interpretation-wise.

With Mr. Bungle, I'd lay down a really rough demo of my vocals and then play them for the guys without telling them what I was saying. Our drummer at the time had the coolest takes on what he thought I was saying, so I'd ask him to write out what he thought the lyrics were.

I view making records as a journey.

For us, we make a song, and if we like it, it goes on a record.

I have worked with a lot of people, all very different creatives, helping me hone my craft and discover myself as an artist and the record I want to make. It's such an amazing process seeing and hearing the tracks that people could eventually be listening to on my debut album!

When I'm making a record, I'm trying to take people through different moods.

Even when I'm making my own solo records, I'm collaborating with people. It keeps things interesting for me.

We just did a bunch of songs, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the songs that we made. We didn't feel like we had to do Miike Snow. We just did it because, I mean, I guess we felt like it would be a bit of a shame to leave it where we left it.

I just do what I do. I like to make music.

I've got my own studio, so I sit in my studio writing and if I get a great take, that's the take.

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.

That's when we decided to stop in '66. Everyone thought we toured for years, you know, but we didn't. I joined in '62, and we'd finished touring in '66 to go into the studio where we could hear each other... and create any fantasy that came out of anybody's brain.

There hasn't been one moment in my career where I felt I didn't have any control over the creative aspects of my records.

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.

It was kind of easier for me to do records that didn't take a year or two years of my life to write and to make.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record.

Being on the road is a great habitat for creating new music because there's so many different experiences.

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.