Collaborative Music Production Quotes

After 1999, I thought that I needed a break. As a senior composer, I didn't like the trend of three music directors working on a single film. But after a few quiet years, I was back for good.

I got a chance to work with Mystikal and Mannie Fresh and Juvenile and all these people as I was growing up, and so that really influenced everything I do.

I did a record with Janet Jackson, and it went to the top of the charts, and we had all of these complications, and she couldn't be in the video and couldn't do anything for the record. I went through something similar with Pitbull. I think it works really well for a lot of other artists, but for me, it just doesn't work that well.

I just initiated the project where I write music for somebody else to write the lyrics and also for the orchestra to perform. I've just initiated the project. That leads the project into creating an independent label outside of game music.

I work with my brother Finneas, and he produces all of my music in his little bedroom in our house. We actually tried renting out a studio for a month when we were producing 'Don't Smile at Me,' but it was really hard there, and we ended up just doing it at home anyway.

From what I've heard, videogame soundtracks - obviously, there's less budget and all of that - it just seems like game soundtracks are farmed out among friends. And it seems like more of an afterthought. It's a videogame. It's much more background.

When you work with Drake, you don't really work with Drake. You send him the song, he rap on it, then y'all done worked together. So it ain't like me and him sitting in the studio.

I tend to write pretty much by myself. I always did that anyway. I used to write with Ron Strykert 'cause he was the only guitarist and we played well together. We lived in the same place. I would play a certain style and he would kind of dance around what I did, in a sense. I learned from him and also vice-versa. With this band, I think I bounce ideas off everybody. Perhaps on the next album they'll be more collaborative stuff, but for the last 2-3 years, I've been pretty well writing by myself.

Since I met Starsmith, my producer, I really feel like I'm making music because we write it together and produce it together. I've got a proper involvement in the end product as opposed to just writing a song and finding someone else to produce it.

Part of doing mash-ups is getting the legal rights to use the songs. If you're going to do a mash-up with five songs, you should probably find 10 songs, because you're only going to get half of them cleared. It's a real collaborative effort.

I think that where it came from and the initial birth of it - it did come out of a jam at Bruno's studio, you know? He was playing drums. And Jeff Bhasker, who co-produced the record with us, is on synths, and I was playing bass.