Keith Emerson Quotes

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, 'Can I sing this part,' or, 'I want to play guitar.'

I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.

You want to mix acting styles correctly. People approach the work in different ways. You want to make sure no one wants to kill each other because the approach is different.

When you work with someone you don't quite know, you have to figure the director out, and you can come up with ideas that are counter-productive.

Soundgarden was incredibly democratic, and I was really proud of that. I felt like we got along better than most bands we toured with and most people we knew. And at the same time, when you're that democratic and concerned with each other's opinions, you're always concerned with what the other people think.

You could say that Fleetwood Mac is a bit of a dysfunctional family, but we are a family.

I've always been a very collaborative person, and I think 'Cop Car' and all the people I worked with who made it possible is a good example of that.

Everyone wants the same thing in this band, so we definitely respect each other. I mean, all of us have had hit songs, so it's a band full of people who really know what they're talking about, so you have to respect that even when you think something you have might be great, and they go, 'Man, it's not as great as you think it is.'

At the end of the day, sometimes we don't always get along, because when do friends always get along? But we are a family first and even more than just being brothers in a band.

Part of the job of being a producer is the Vulcan mind meld, where you listen not to what they're saying but what they mean.

I see my actors as my collaborators.

All directors have their strengths and weaknesses, as all actors have, and all artists. What you try to do is complete the relationship and take care of the stuff that the director won't take care of.

I've worked on shows where the actors don't talk to each other, and if they want to talk to each other, they talk through the director. What kind of existence is this? If I have to spend 14 hours a day with somebody, we're in a relationship. We'd better talk it out.

Successful collaboration, in your mind, could be that your opinion is the most valuable and becomes the prevailing sort of direction. That's not collaborating.

On 'Vikings,' nobody's got an ego. Michael Hirst is just so open and so collaborative.

I've done a lot of pictures that are ensemble, and I've not always liked the people I was working with, but that doesn't make any difference because you do the job, and often it turns out to be a great ensemble even if you didn't particularly really like anybody.

One of the things about Fleetwood Mac is, when we're not together, we don't talk a lot or keep in touch. We keep a healthy distance.

If you understand each other's way of thinking, you understand what kind of film someone is trying to make, and all the ideas that I come up with will fit into that film.

Actors and directors work on things together. That's how I like to work, anyway. I don't want to be told what to do. I want to share it with someone and work it out together.

One of the first people that believed in me, the first person to invest in my talent, me and this guy used to argue all the time in the studio, but at the end of the day, we both realized that we were after the same goal, and that was to make great music. And I'm talking about Eazy-E.

Fleetwood Mac was one big lesson in adaptation for me. There were five very different personalities, and I suppose that made it great for a while.

If you've got someone fighting your corner, someone who loves you and you love, and is also really, really clever, the battle is so much easier.

The actors work out how to create the show with me during the rehearsals. They owe it to themselves and each other to maintain that contract regardless of what the critics say.

There's a synergy with Dre and me.

Mike Schur knows exactly what everything should look like but, at the same time, is super collaborative and loves working with actors that make choices and bring stuff to the table.