Musical Production Quotes

I've written 90 percent of the songs in my career, on all my albums.

My songwriting process is based on a formula: Color, tone, words. When I hear production, I initially identify the color that resonates with me. From there, I am able to translate the color into tone or emotion, which may depend on a number of things.

The funny thing is, because I was doing a lot of theater when I was a kid, and a lot of that was musical theater, as I got older I became more interested in acting as a separate entity and music as a separate entity, like songwriting and production and recording and playing music.

Here's the way Static-X has always worked: I write all the songs by myself - totally and completely by myself - I give demos to the other guys, and then they add their parts to it, and then we argue about stuff and compromise and it turns out being Static-X.

I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that's in my head.

I have ambitions to do a Broadway record one of these days and get in the studio with like, a real orchestra. I'm a big musical theatre geek.

I've not really spent much time in proper studios. The room itself where you're recording, and how you live while you're there is what appeals to me.

Since I was doing all of it myself, I had to decide where I wanted to go with the songs, how to proceed with the chords, if the sound was alright, and all that detail on my own.

I just always loved the storytelling aspect. Even with the production that's happening right now in music, I still think the core of country songs are very stripped down, and they tell a story in the most pure sense.

When I was at Stratford, the very first thing that I was commissioned to work on was trying to make a musical out of the documentary material about the General Strike, which was the next big historical event in England, after the First World War.

Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it's a loop or a drum, it's about what suits the song. It's using what's within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don't know if I always get it right, because I don't know every sound yet.

Sometimes I have a melody in my head; sometimes it's just a verse. I read lines from a book or movies that I watch and grab a few quotes and start writing on paper. From there, I record a really rough version and work on the song.

Common and I have a long history of making great music together.

I think, at the end of the day, that was really what the reward for production is for me, is being allowed to be a part of somebody else's musical vision for a while. Like Gwar. I got to do a Gwar record, right? That was great.

I want the recording process to be a time in my life that I will remember.

Currently I'm working with Parker Fly on a new Midi guitar to arrive next year.

It's easier to collaborate with instrumentalists than singers; they know exactly the sound that I need.

When I'm making my own record, it's real work for me.

I was in the original cast of 'Sunset Boulevard.' I played Betty. But I wasn't on the cast album.

If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.

That was when Neil discovered Jack Nietzsche. They went off and pretty much came up with that by themselves, but I thought it was a great song, and I was more than happy to do my harmony parts on it.

I love musicals but it's very, very different. It's really just a different form than serious drama, and has very different rules and a completely different set of characters and requirements and ambitions. It maybe shouldn't be as separate as it is, but it's got a different history. In terms of serious drama, I think you'd have to say that you could break it down essentially into the narrative realist tradition and experimental theater.

Honestly, musicals? I just can't. What if this was real life and I was just walking down the street on Rodeo Drive and all of a sudden I just burst into song about how much I love shoes?

We kind of established in Sons of Apollo right from the get go that it would be a very collaborative process musically, but after that, I was going to take the reins and control everything else beyond that the way I did with Dream Theater.

For a movie, you have to make sure the lyrics are consistent with the rhythm that is given to you. But, at times, during the song's recording, you find out that your words are not appropriate for the track, and so you have to change them.