The first time I saw 'Minecraft,' people wanted to have 8-bit style video game music. But I wanted to go around that and make something organic and partly electronic, partly acoustic, and see if that would be interesting.
Throughout my years in From First to Last, I was always dabbling and making electronic music on my own time. The first records I ever owned were crossover electronic rock, like Prodigy, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.
For more than 10 years, Daniel Snaith has been playing mad scientist with pop and psychedelic music. As Manitoba, and more recently as Caribou, he's pushed the genres' limits with electronics and studio trickery.
You know, I'm a fan of Laurie Anderson. One of my favorite records is 'The Ugly One With the Jewels,' a spoken-word record. It's an extraordinary album.
A violin is nothing more than a piece of wood and a dead cat. But it's a piece of technology. So when computers came along, in the '70s, I suddenly thought, hang on a second, this is interesting. These things can become an instrument. So I just became very interested in them, and started, playing with electronics.
I do dance music, and I can be pretty camp myself from time to time.
I think that my biggest influences are electronic acts. Daft Punk is probably my number 1, then Kanye West would be number 2 after that.
I have a Yamaha YC-45D organ in my studio. It's actually Terry Riley's favorite keyboard, so if you find old clips of him on YouTube, he's usually playing one of these.
I remember when I was coming up, the music stores where you could get guitar strings was where I got my records from. Now the place where you get your records from is where you can get your DJ mats and your mixers.
I like African music but also R&B, rap, alternative rock, and classic.
I started DJ-ing in the '90s. DJ-ing is in every record I do. When I make records I make them for DJs.
I learned to MC over drum 'n' bass music.
I went back to DJ'ing in 1987, and it's been an incredible second career for me. Plus, it's almost a parallel universe. If you don't go to underground clubs, you wouldn't know what I do or who I am. So there's been a whole new audience of people that don't even know I'm that 'Boy George', the one their mother used to like.
When I'm writing good music and I'm caffeinated, I attribute all my success to the coffee, get really sentimental about the EDM scene and tweet a lot.
I'm a computer nerd. I'm behind my computer, like, 12 hours a day making new music.
When I was younger, I was a rave kid trapped inside a singer/songwriter's body. But I kind of figured my way out because I started making these really terrible beats on this Yamaha keyboard that my parents got me for my 10th birthday.
Rock music is electronic music, dependent entirely on electronic circuitry and amplification.
People don't realize enough how important and influentical John Carpenter has been in electronic music. He did his soundtracks by himself, using mostly electronic and analog synthesizers. He's a cult figure with DJs these days for good reasons.
I just got exposed to electronica, and I really liked it. I am also good with alternative rock. I like Lana Del Rey, Adele, Dido, Jack Johnson, and I love the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
I still love R&B - I kind of literally listen to everything.
Mr. Philippe Zdar is a little bit like the uncle of the whole Daft Punk-Phoenix-Air thing in Paris and known for being in the group Cassius. It was interesting working with Philippe.
A girl offered me E at the club. 'Have you ever done E?' 'I watch E.'
So in my mind I own a lot of house records still.
I think people forget even though we were labelled a synth band because of 'The Hurting,' but keyboards are not our native instruments. Roland's a guitar player and I'm a bass player.
The 1980s were all about synths for me, and it never went away after that.
