John Fogerty Quotes

The problem is that once I start on a song and get a rough idea of where I might go with an arrangement, I try dozens, sometimes hundreds, of different things on a song. The bass, the backing guitars, the lead guitars, the keyboards. It's a long process. It's like 100 steps forward and 99 steps back.

I think a lot of the fun of making records, for me, is making each one of them a situation. For example, with 'Ghost,' I found a group of people that had an energy together, and we kind of did it in a cabin somewhere.

The best thing that I got was rehearsing with my father. It was always about the process of figuring things out, and trying something new, and having another take on something and keeping it alive.

I'm never too ambitious when I go into the studio. I always know that I'm just going into the studio to work on or try to develop an idea that I have for a song.

Making records is fun. It's not some big statement. You're allowed to make mistakes.

I don't ever land on an album title until I know exactly what's going on the record, because you never know until it's all said and done.

Singing with Aaron Neville, he pulled stuff out of my voice I never could have gotten, because if he's providing XYZ, I have to put in ABC, and usually I don't have to put in ABC.

When we make records, it's hard to pinpoint one thing that inspires a record. It's usually a number of different things that lead to inspiration or wanting to write something down and share it with someone.

And the thing about me is, I have a lot of mellow songs, because they're the easiest for me to write. I wanted to try to make some more upbeat songs, so, I ended up gravitating toward writing songs with friends, which was a great learning process, and also we came up with great songs. Those are the songs that came out the most naturally.

And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they're here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.

The first album, for better or for worse, was done over from the ages of 17-22, with a couple of different producers. Some of it was recorded in an old swimming pool, some of it was recorded in a synagogue - it kind of was all over the place.

I feel like, a lot of times, when you have a specific sound that you want and are searching for, you want the right group to help you put the kind of music out that you want.

With 'Words, Words, Words,' that show was me experimenting with something, and then there was a clear direction for me.

When After Forever stopped, I didn't want to first find a band, then see if I could write with them, figure that whole thing out, then record an album. Instead, I worked with people I knew would be good songwriters out of an idea how I thought it would sound like.

With Mr. Bungle, I'd lay down a really rough demo of my vocals and then play them for the guys without telling them what I was saying. Our drummer at the time had the coolest takes on what he thought I was saying, so I'd ask him to write out what he thought the lyrics were.

Armaan has a simple approach and understands what a composer wants. I tell him, 'Give the song your own vibe but I will still come and fight with you and change it.'

When we were writing 'In Our Bones,' everything was bubbly champagne all the time so that's what ended up on the record.

You don't really learn how to write songs; you learn to develop as a writer, and you get to meet lots of musicians and figure out what kind of sound you want. You have the time to just develop and try different styles, and that's what I did.

I view making records as a journey.

The first record we made, we recorded and mixed in a day. The second record was recorded and mixed in a week. The third was recorded and mixed in a month, and 'New Wave' was mixed and recorded in six months. It was an epic project.

The entire making of 'Within and Without' was a series of experiments and trial by error. When I started writing, I didn't have a strong idea of what the record was going to end up like.

When I go in the studio with Post, I have a really good idea of what he's going to gravitate to, what we can work with.

Experimenting is part of the process. I remember when I was younger, I spent a whole year just writing on straight trap beats because I just wanted to be able to do that at a high level. So it's about perfecting your craft in every way.

The fun for me musically is that you never quite know what works and why. So why pretend you do? Why not just put things together and discover, in the creative process, if and why they work? That approach has served me well.

Me and Tory Lanez got good chemistry together. We could make a song so easy, but we always like to figure out what we're really doing. We can make a good song, but it gotta make sense.