People like Prince don't have to care about anything, but they care because they want music for the future to be great.
I lived in a cabin in the woods in Oregon, and I'd basically given up on the music industry for an indefinite amount of time. And while I was out there, I came up with a very specific vision of what I wanted my music to sound like.
Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.
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.
Sometimes something opens up in your brain as I'm writing, thinking about the song, and it's like a whirlwind. It all comes together and I could hear what I wanted the songs to sound like, I just didn't know how to express it.
When I work with artists, I give them a general guideline of what my vision is. Then they're going to speak their minds on how they view it, too. The song that defines 'Neon Future' the best is the title track. I wrote that with Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun. It's through his words. We had an amazing songwriting session together, connecting.
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.
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.
I wanted to write picture music ever since I was a kid.
Aaron Copland was a man that had a very specific point of view about what music should be which was that, he felt that new music should have the composer should show a personality in his music.
I just make music based on what I believe.
I like to oversee what I do, so I have a hand in writing my songs. I also have people there to help me with my vision.
With me, I would never lose my sight of music.
As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.
I don't really class myself as a musician, I can make music but I'm not the greatest technically. There were other people who were technically better than me in school but I knew how I wanted to sound and all I needed was to work out how to do it.
I started writing songs in high school and always wanted to have a band, and eventually my creative endeavors developed into Theocracy. So in some ways, you could say the vision has been there since I started writing songs.
Music is funny. I shouldn't even ever talk about music, because you can have all the ideas in your head, and it never goes exactly the way that you think it's gonna go.
My songs are always four years ahead of me. They're like my teachers.
I want to be Kanye and do what he does musically. I'm very fearless.
When it comes to music, I am a dictator. Making a Dirty Projectors record come to life is like making a movie; I'm the one that makes the picture, and then we all figure out how to realise it.
To be honest, we never, ever let business weigh down the creativity of this band.
For me, the one thing I've got going for me in terms of my attributes as a musician is vision.
Music is the most important thing. I'm thinking of my future. There has to be something new, and I want to be part of it. I want to lead an orchestra with excellent musicians. I want to play music which draws pictures of the world and its space
There are two types of conductors. One is the good conductor who can do passionate music but also listen to the singers and do the orchestra. And then there are great conductors, who have their own opinion on the music, who are ruling everything - and not listening much to the singers, but the orchestra play amazingly.
I have always known that it comes from deep within myself. I always knew what sound I wanted, and how I wanted to play. I knew everything, it just had to be developed.
