Jay DeMarcus Quotes

I was 17 when I released my first record. I didn't really figure out what I wanted to say, how to get a message and put it together.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I feel like every time I write a song, it feels like the first time I wrote a song. It's just as hard; it doesn't get easier, but that's why I love it: because it's a challenge every time. I also feel like I'm learning new ways.

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.

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

When I did 'Horses,' I never expected to make another album.

I'm so hard on myself that when I'm in the studio, I'll write 10 songs and only use one. So those nine songs that are left over, I always think, 'Where could these go? Who could they be for?'

I can't remember writing any of the songs that I've written.

My songwriting process is painful. Songwriting is brilliant. It's a load of fun - when it works. It's really difficult as well.

Every song you write you think is the last one you're going to manage. You put everything you've got into the song, and you've twisted it and pulled at it and dug in and found a way to complete it. To get another one is the trick.

When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now,' that never works. Every time that happens, I never write a hit song.

I never stopped recording, but I went through a period where... The one thing that a lot of people don't know is that for as long as I've been as artist, I've been a writer and a producer.

I had written or cowritten eight of the ten songs on 'Beauty and the Beat,' and I had written our biggest hit, 'We Got the Beat.' How was I going to top all of that?

The whole idea of doing an album is overwhelming sometimes. But, I get inspired when I get inspired and that's when it flows easily.

Well after 'Fast Car' was so huge, everyone was asking me, 'What's the next song?' At the time I just had ideas I was working on, but it was very clear I needed to finish another song ASAP, and that's how 'Perfect Strangers' came about.

I think the third record is the hardest one.

Miyazaki has a great talent, but I really struggle every time I create a new film and am far from Miyazaki.

I genuinely find the most meaningful thing I do is to make music, but also to absorb some sort of creativity.

I always had to wait until something hit me, and I could write it. But when I would cut an album, to me it represented the time that I spent since the last one. Just the way I was looking at the world.

My first record was made in Termonfeckin, which is a small town on the north-east coast of Ireland. I had been in London, but it didn't click. So, at home, I didn't think about making something, just whether something could be made. There was no grand plan.

I can't cut off an ear everyday. Do the Van Gogh here and the Mozart there. Anyway it's exhausting enough always having to check up on what one is really doing!.

I only do solo albums when songs are screaming at me to be let out of my mind.

Sometimes I'll sing the same verse through the entire song, because the other verses aren't clicking. And when they do come to me, I'm in the middle of that same verse!

One day I'll wake up and I'll have 10 or 12 songs and think, 'Oh that sounds like it could be a record.'

It never gets boring for me because there's so many different things to explore in the studio. The studio's become the sanctuary that people have come in and found new things out about themselves, as weird as that sounds. But it's true, I'm no different. I've made some crazy hard records, and I've made a jazz album.