David Longstreth Quotes

When you're making a record, you try to achieve stylistically what fits on you. Like a good old coat, you know what I mean?

Because somebody plays guitar, why does it mean they need a singer? Because people already have this image of things? No, I'll put my music together, then think about whether I need to embellish it with a singer.

A strong concept is the most important thing in creating a record. When you can listen to it and see a whole movie in your head, that's what separates an instrumental album from a beat tape.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record.

I always want to make an album that lets people immerse in it, kind of like you get caught up in a good movie.

I had 25 or 30 songs. Sequencing the record, I left that to the producer. I'm not into doing that stuff.

I like to oversee what I do, so I have a hand in writing my songs. I also have people there to help me with my vision.

I know what it takes to put a record together, so I'm not looking for people to come in and shape it.

I've just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I'm just still writing songs and what not.

I applaud the effort it takes to put a record together.

I've got four or five records in my head at a time that I try to work on and I would like to do a guitar trio record next - since The Police I've mostly made records with keyboards.

Songs are not on a conveyor belt. I'm not chopping them up and putting them out.

I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together.

When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble.

The records I make, I'm there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.

If you see a credit with just my name on it, that means I write absolutely everything: rhythm guitar parts, guitar melodies, vocal melodies... absolutely everything, really.

We kind of established in Sons of Apollo right from the get go that it would be a very collaborative process musically, but after that, I was going to take the reins and control everything else beyond that the way I did with Dream Theater.

A producer gets the whole vision done from top to bottom, to making the record to having the record delivered to the world. That's a producer.

Creating a record on my own and deciding who plays and how the songs were structured, it was fun to do.

Making an album is always a puzzle: you start by seeing a lot of different pieces, and they all need to come together into one picture.

'I Remember' was produced before the vocal. It's just another body of work in the long list of bodies of work.

I like being in a recording studio. I like watching a song go from the simplicity of the original music.

A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.

I got a couple on per album but my problem was that I wanted to sing the songs and not let Roger sing them.

I basically was in charge of the Jackson 5 - all their creative, when it came down to the studio, and all their musical endeavors. I tried to create a Hitsville on the West Coast.