Ben Gibbard Quotes

I love going into the studio with just an idea of the direction. Like, I want this tempo... I love to start from scratch, and the tracks sort of take on a life of their own.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

When I tried to play something and screwed up, I'd hear some other note that would come into play. Then I started trying different things to find the beauty in it.

My intentions have been, and are always, to just really get behind what my ideas are musically and to just ride this thing out, cause it feels good, and I think for the most part it's good music. Even when it's not, I'd like to still search for something that could be even like a little bit mind-blowing or shocking to me.

I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.

I just like a beat that grabs me. And then I'll come up with a concept after. I like to take my time with music.

When I try and extract what it is about my music that I do or love or try to create, I'm never aware of it at the time. I just make something.

I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.

I said, other people can write songs, let's see if I can. So the first 400 or 500 wound up on the floor somewhere. Then I wrote one called Melissa.

So the actual riffing came out of us just sitting there and doing it the way I think some people think we really did it, which is all spontaneously, and it really was.

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

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do, and then just go for it.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I never took music lessons. I was just playing around in front of the mirror and being silly, then suddenly I started making songs.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

When you're making music, it's meant to be shared with people. Sometimes, even if I'm writing a song, someone else brings a vibe. There's something different about it. If someone can play a better bassline than me, I'll let them do it. I'm just here to fit in and see where it goes.

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

Sometimes I think that I want to do something strictly basic, really simple. Just with a few chords. But I won't have anything more than two or three sentences in my head. That kind of evaporates once I start playing and then it goes off in whatever direction.

If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.

I like to start with an idea, but then again, I might be sitting at the keyboard, and just playing a bunch of chords that sound cool together, and something just inspires an idea from that.

When I begin working on a production, I don't really think about my previous album or albums. I try to have a real creative process.

The music always takes us to different places. We'll just continue to play and see what doors open from there.

I think with everything I do, I'm trying to just come up with new ways of creating music and mixing styles together. That's just what's fun for me to do, to try to make myself inspired.

I say most of my music is very trial-and-error.

I couldn't find a way to write music with numbers and rules and schedules. So I tried to forget the academic idea of music and started to see if it was possible to do creative work, taking in all the influences I wanted to keep.