Mike Patton Quotes

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

I never thought of being a performer, never thought of being a singer, never thought of being a photographer. It's just the trajectory of my work. I go to the medium that serves the vision.

I like to oversee what I do, so I have a hand in writing my songs. I also have people there to help me with my vision.

Most people don't really understand what it takes to get a film made, and the struggles .I think anyone who makes a film goes through their own set of struggles.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

I would draw a really sharp distinction between creating and producing. I think that they're very different things.

If no producer, no movie.

Stevie didn't use the technology to drive the song. He used it to enhance. I use the tools to further my work, I don't use my work to further the tools.

I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game.

When you're actually making the film, you're constantly battling to maintain its integrity.

When I went into the studio I created a sound that I wanted to hear.

You always hope for the best when you put something out and try to make the best music you can make, but you can't control what happens after that.

I mean, I think about it, but I don't design my record to get a certain public response.

Writing the songs and producing the songs and arranging them and recording them is your canvas and your palette and your brush.

Someone who is an artist can say, 'I can create and can make what I create disappear.'

I spend just as much time on how people hear my music as I do the actual music, no matter how long it takes. I'm such a visual artist as well that it always goes hand-in-hand.

It's hard. It's hard to get a film made properly.

There's really powerful and potentially dominating forces when you make a film that can harm it if you're incapable of orchestrating things.

Making a movie is a network of decisions that keep multiplying as you go. You leave a trail of decisions behind you, and that's how you start to see the shape of what you've done. When you get far enough, you turn around and say, 'Ha, that's the movie.' It's only then that you find out if it's going to work or not.

I just make the music feel the way I want it to feel, and I don't put it out until I'm totally happy with it.

I think most people don't know that I really write everything myself. No help. There's nobody in the studio except for me and the engineer. A lot of people don't think I'm a singer. They think I'm a rapper.

I'm not sure I would want to be a filmmaker, because I've seen how many people they have to go through in order to create their own movie. It doesn't seem like something I can imagine putting myself through.

We actually make all of our own music videos. Often we come up with the visual concepts at the same time as writing the music.

It is difficult to make movies on your own terms and also to make a film and convince somebody to have faith in it.

There is always the working out of things, and you have to have sort of a gut response to it. And an intellectual response. And an aesthetic response. All that comes from having done this for a long time. Instead of saying, "That's a really good rock track, and that will do," I'm looking for something that is more original and fresh. There are a lot of elements to get into it: a level or sophistication, passion and excitement.