I suppose that Heartland, Unknown Soldier and Pride and Joy represent not a quieter side but more of a serious side to my work, something I've been getting into recently.
Peter Cooper looks at the world with an artist's eye and a human heart and soul. His songs are the work of an original, creative imagination, alive with humor and heartbreak and irony and intelligence, with truth and beauty in the details. Deep stuff. And they get better every time you listen to them.
I knew that when it came time for me to finally make my own album, it wasnt going to be about being a jock. It had to be more personal and intimate.
Chance the Rapper: if you listen to his narrative and the subject matter he covers in his music, you can see that he's strong, courageous and shows vulnerability. He asks some very poignant questions in his music and is still very melodic. The harmony and the melody of the music allows you to also come in closer.
What I really want from Music: That it be cheerful and profound like an afternoon in October.
I like to hear songs which can lay it all on, songs which can look at the dark side as well as the bright side, sometimes they can be as strong as each other. Love and hatred are close.
There is a string attached to Maia Sharp's voice. And when she sings, you find that the other end is attached to your gut. Her voice is lush and sensual and the emotions she articulates resonate with the small feelings we have that sometimes are hard to face..there is an edge to her songs, but also a softness...she is lyrical and conversational at the same time. Her CD was the only one in my machine for a month. Her work inspires me to dig deeper.
I'm not emo. I've never been emo.
As a bit of loner, prone to melancholy, with a questionable sexuality, I found great solace in the words of-Dylan, Joni, John Prine and Leonard Cohen. The darker the better.
I didn't want to put myself, or anyone else, asleep with another quintessential Mark Kozelek album.
I just think Radiohead are f-in' miserable bastards.
I've never written songs about relationships. I've written songs about how I feel. The songs are more about me, than another person. That's the way I like to look at it.
Every one of Joel's important songs--including the happy ones--are ultimately about loneliness. And it's not 'clever lonely' (like Morrissey) or 'interesting lonely' (like Radiohead); it's 'lonely lonely,' like the way it feels when you're being hugged by someone and it somehow makes you sadder.
If you really listen to my music my music is more like stories than party records. I never made party records.
I hate albums that are really happy. When I am really happy, I don't like to hear happy albums, and when I am really sad I don't wanna hear happy albums... and I tend to gravitate towards the lonely and isolated anyway when I write.
I love the sad songs with their maudlin, self-deprecating, almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman, they make a lot of sense.
The music tends to be an expression of one's darker moments.
I've been getting into Nick Drake lately, the folk singer. Sad, gorgeous stuff.
Most of the songs are, in a roundabout way, actually addressed to myself, there's a certain aspect of the songs that's very confessional, very unadulterated...It was a very unfettered, spiritual experience.
You have to reflect honestly what's around you in your music. I think a lot of people are just obsessed with their own relationships, so that is an honest reflection of what they see. A lot of people don't go much deeper than that.
I'm definitely light-spirited, but I just felt like my music had to have a little more depth.
