Kevin Parker Quotes

There is no 'stop' - there's always 'go' on both sides: always keep writing, always keep recording. I don't find them to be segmented processes.

But the approach to recording this album was kind of an organized, chaotic approach where I wanted to maintain and preserve that wild abandon to creating.

If the beat feels like it don't make you move right, I scrap that and go to another track. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour to get one done.

I just freestyle. I don't actually write the words on paper. It's just whatever comes into my mind. I'll record three or four lines at a time, get a good take, and do three or four more. It may be whatever comes into my mind. But I care about my craft a lot more than a lot of other people.

The only thing that's changed for me is that I've figured out a new way to do this; when I go to record, I like to do the drums last, if that makes any sense to you.

It's like swimmin' without warmin' up, yuo know what I mean? So [cackles] we use the drum machine, and we take it out.

I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy.

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].

I always love it best when you have a project where there is this commingling of the subject matter and the way in which you're recording that subject matter.

This morning I got up early and I was glazing the paintings and they just looked so beautiful. I had a private moment of "yeah, I'm behind this." Which is all that matters as an artist, to believe in what you're doing. It sounds like an obvious thing but it takes a lot of work.

I cant duplicate my own successes, because part of the creation of that effect is making something happen that you didn't expect

It's funny, I can see the science in how music is made with other artists, but it's hard for me to dissect my own thing.

For the first month of school, writing is its own upper. Pounding on my computer keys feels like playing the piano, like arranging words into harmony that sings back to me.

I tend not to work with a specific person in mind. Art is a matter of statistics. It's not about individuals. It's about people.

I get the feeling that sometimes the ideas work very well when you're doing them in the studio alone.

I've no idea where ideas come from and I hope I never find out; it would spoil the excitement for me if it turned out I just have a funny little wrinkle on the surface of my brain which makes me think about invisible train platforms.

The creation of the world did not occur at the beginning of time, it occurs every day.

All good verses are like impromptus made at leisure.

I prefer to think of film making - you know, um, the sweat is supposed to be invisible. But a lot of sweat can go into making a film. But of course, if you enjoy doing it, you enjoy doing it.

When you are creating your character there are a lot of questions and sometimes you doubt if you are making the right choices.

As an actor you don't control the end result. Because you're a director, you get to control the end result. I think for us, we really have to show up and participate and give. And then let go.

I'm not into, Hey, what's your sign? or any of that. But I don't know how I got here, and I don't know how I write songs. I don't know why I breathe.

For me, when we came out with a TV show, my HBO show, so much of the feedback was, "How do I do it?" And my response was always the same: "Just make something." Stop talking about it. You do in a way that the work takes on a life of its own. Like the "Signature" series [(2008), in which the artist trekked across the United States in the shape of his own signature] was a simple concept that became this story about the people you met along the way.

I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working.

I only know this - that you can’t give advice to an artist.