David Johansen Quotes

I go through a thousand songs to find ten for a new record.

All the signs were right. And when I mean all the sings were right, the only signs that we care about when we start a project of making a record is, do we have the songs - it's that simple.

I've had this song in a drawer for a long time, maybe seven or eight years. Every time I'd do an album, I'd take it out and listen to it, and always liked what it had to say. Plus when Garth came in and sang on it, that made it really special.

Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.

We travel so much as touring musicians and artists that sometimes, when you hear a great song that you really think could be on your project, you go ahead and record it instead of try to write it.

I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.

It's not the case of turning in a bunch of songs and recording the next month. I think you're looking for songs all year long and you're writing all year long.

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

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

It's a massive undertaking putting an album together... It's not light weight at all.

For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.

Every album is just a greatest hits of whatever songs are on a pile when I go in to make a record.

They're mostly done before we went into the studio, although I do like writing in the studio.

When I was recording my first solo album 'Imaginaryland,' I was listening to a lot of movie scores.

We just wrote songs that seemed good to us. We wrote the album in like two weeks. We could have had more time, but we accomplished what we needed to in the two weeks.

I guess we decided to make a new record 3 years ago when Nancy was done scoring for Almost Famous.

Either you write songs or you don't. And if you do write songs like I do, I think there's a natural desire to want to make records.

The actual making of a record is the most exciting part of this business.

All my writing takes place during the recording of the master tapes. I never do have songs when I start up an album. I actually write them while I record.

I kind of tend to write a lot of songs, so it's never too hard for me to finish an album; it's more about just getting enough songs that I really love.

When I make albums, I do a lot of songwriting but not necessarily a whole album.

I tend to have a lot of songs ready for each record I do anyway. I always have. I was thinking, the more you write, the better chance you're going to come up with a collection of stuff that is going to work together.

You're always thinking about making new music.

Making records is hard work.

I still love to go in the studio and write and all that.