Tommy Lee Quotes

You go in and record and sing them some and you go back in and rerecord and sing them some more. That's kind of how I did this album [The Art of Elegance].

Every album is just a greatest hits of whatever songs are on a pile when I go in to make a record.

I've always recorded the same way. I put down as many ideas as I have, then strip them away at the mixdown. It's better to have too much music than not enough.

I really don't think records should be made in the manner where you sit and write, and when you're finished writing, you start recording. That just seems conventional and old-fashioned to me.

Producers like to record all the drums first, then they do the bass, then all the guitars, so you're constantly moving from one song to another.

You just went right in and just recorded songs and listened them, and if there were any mistakes, then we would correct them and just went on... one take or two take.

Rick Rubin said, well, I don't know that we will sell records. He said, I would like you to go with me and sit in my living room with a guitar and two microphones and just sing to your heart's content everything you ever wanted to record. I said, that sounds good to me. So I did that. And day after day, three weeks, I sang for him.

I couldn't do "What's Love Got To Do With It", Tina Turner because it wasn't the right tempo; so I scratched it from the record. I wanted to do it about a year ago, but something happened.

I'm always going forward toward something, and that something is usually an album, because I like to record. I probably like to record more than I like to write.

I know how it feels to go into a studio to start a record, and eight weeks later it's finished. I know how an intense schedule feels.

I don't really make records chronologically.

When I record music I like to be in one place and kind of have a base to keep going back to.

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

All day long you write little ideas on the piano and the guitar, but sometimes all you have to do is come in, set up the mic, press record and start the process.

When I write - I always write on my own - I demo those songs on a four-track.

I'm used to writing something, it becomes a record, it comes out. Then I go perform and I play it and I get this immediate feedback from the audience. So that's been the pattern of my life.

I try to record music that people can relate to.

The idea of taking a song, envisioning the overall sound in my head and then bringing the arrangement to life in the studio...well, that gives me satisfaction like nothing else.

The recording process was basically me meeting with different writers, going into their studio, starting a song and just hanging out and chatting and getting to know how they work. Everybody has a different writing process so there was a lot of getting to know people, which can be fun and stressful at the same time.

When I recorded for Columbia, I could usually do anything in one take...I would invariably want to use the first take because that would be the one that was spontaneous and fresh.

I definitely use "smiling while rapping" as a tool in the booth. I want to have fun while recording. At times it can get tedious and stressful when it's not sounding the way you heard it in your head, but you've got to remember to just smile and appreciate the fact that you're even in the booth and there are people who want to hear your art.

I don't like to disappear between records. I like to play shows while I'm making the record.

You don't really know what you're going to get until you're actually in Abbey Road. That's where I did all the music, in The Beatles' place.

I feel like making music because - and this has much to do with the way I was able to make this record - there's more of myself in it.

I love the live cut part of making records the surprises are the prizes.