Synthwave Quotes

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.

The 1980s were all about synths for me, and it never went away after that.

The reason I like Steve Aoki is because I can trace my love of electronic music all the way back to when I was listening to not just new wave but to YMO [Yellow Magic Orchestra] which, to me, was the ultimate Japanese band and launched synth electronic music.

I'll listen to pretty much anything good, but I probably listen to more "electronic" music than anything else.

Electronic music right now is in its comfort zone, and it's not moving one inch.

Obviously, it's had a huge effect on repetitive music or dance music or house music. Ambient in the last ten years has infiltrated into all those repetitive musics. I don't know what part it plays in pop necessarily but I'm sure there's some connection. But in all the music that deals with experimental repetition, drum and bass, dub, various kinds of house music, there's always been a quality of atmosphere and ambience. I think it's infiltrated that pretty heavily.

With 'Space Dandy,' you've obviously got your image of the space and 80s music, and blending them together is how I created it.

We used to have quirky weird bands that made dance music like the Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode and I think people have still got an appetite for that type of music-melody and darkness.

My stuff gets in a lot of vaporwave Facebook groups for some reason.

I actually really liked the music to the 'Friday the 13th' Nintendo game. I still listen to it all the time. I sampled it in a couple records, too. It's hypnotic and dark but also really pretty.

I have the utmost respect for synthesizers - Soft Cell, early Depeche Mode. But that's become a cliche for the '80s.