Phil Ramone Quotes

I went to art school, and I studied drawing and video art, and I've always approached music so visually as a result that I found it really difficult in the past to kind of hand off music to another director, 'cause it just ends up being this kind of mid-zone where it's nobody's vision, really.

There hasn't been one moment in my career where I felt I didn't have any control over the creative aspects of my records.

What you're really after when you see a film or listen to a song is a singular vision, and I'm not sure how much of that you really get in Hollywood.

My approach is to be part of a band that makes music, not hit songs.

The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made.

I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful.

Stevie didn't use the technology to drive the song. He used it to enhance. I use the tools to further my work, I don't use my work to further the tools.

I want people to come see my films and enjoy them, but at the end of the day you can't control what people think.

You want to put out a record that you feel is exactly as you want it. Nobody wants to tour for two years on a record they don't like.

When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.

I suppose we'll make money off our album and our singles and stuff, but, like, they were made as we wanted them, exactly with what we had to say, and done exactly how we wanted them, right? And, like, we didn't put them out to make money. We put them out because we wanted to do them, do you know what I mean?

I'm worried a lot of our work day as artists is a producer's creation - not an artist's creation.

I put out tapes, but I always kept saying, 'Why am I putting all this energy into these tapes?' I was like, 'I'd rather make just an album because I have a vision; I know how I want to do my records.' I always felt like an artist as well.

I made a conscious decision when I was recording 'Acoustic Soul' to - and this is one of my mantras - follow the music and let the chips fall where they may.

Nobody wants to make something that displeases people, but once you make a film, that's out of your control and you can't think about that. You just have to follow your head and make sure that you're satisfied by putting down what you intended.

If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.

When I started, I was 23 years old directing my own music videos; I'm co-producing on my album; I'm hands-on with everything. I'm more than just a pretty boy: I'm an artist. I'm not saying I'm a hip-hop music artist, I'm an artiste.

My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.

In making a record there are so fewer people involved - at least in our case. There were no more than three or four people in the studio at once. So I really feel like I can stand by everything on the record and say this is something that I personally endorse.

I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.

There's nothing worse than the frustration of having somebody who you feel doesn't get what you're doing, trying to turn it into something else. It's a very, very annoying and sort of frustrating thing and I just never wanted to go through it. I was very fortunate as I came up through the film business that I was able to insulate myself from that.

Of course it's super special to create your own records; it really is a part of my self.

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

In the end, whether I write the script or, in this case, somebody else did, there's a point where you let it go when you're making a movie. You just have to. The thing that you shoot is not what you imagined in your head - it never is exactly that. And it shouldn't be.

I don’t need the money. I don’t care if I make a dime on this. Let me make a good record.