Quotes About Music

It's fun singing with other people who are really good singers. There's something kind of poignant about braiding a couple vocals.

The music comes first. Final lyrics are usually written very close to recording the vocals.

I naturally like that dreamy, shoegazey sound on my vocals. A lot of reverb helps, and so do a lot of delay effects on everything.

Technically, a Ghost song could just be piano and vocals, but it could also be full, pounding, heavy-thrashing hard rock.

Alanis Morissette - I love how she's not afraid to say what she wants to say. Love it or hate it, she's going to say it. And her vocals are crazy; they're amazing, and I also love how her music is really organic.

My production and songwriting and the environment around those vocals are not inspired by R&B at all.

I'm interested in creating a little sound world for songs, really crafting it, building it, and making it like a little doll's house with little things inside it, staircases and rooms and everything kind of relates to everything else. I've never seen it as drums, bass, guitar and vocals in very separate spaces.

I sang in a reggae band. And then there was a soul band where I sang back-up vocals and some lead. And I was also in a women's a capella group. And I was in the gospel choir at school. Actually, I've always been in choirs. Or some kind of group. Just because I love singing so much. But I truthfully never thought of it as a career.

I pay such close attention of the record making process that most people would assume are very little and wouldn't be that big of a deal; the packaging, the title, and the harmonies, I think, are arguably as important as the lead vocals.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of creating music using only vocals.

'Muntazir' has a very feel-good vibe to it. It's Strings' signature composition, especially the pre-chorus. I thoroughly enjoyed lending my vocals to it.

I can remember the first time I ever recorded my vocals on to a beat. Cat Coore from Third World - a legendary Jamaican band - had a little demo set up at his house. I'm very good friends with his eldest son, Shiah, who plays with me now. So we were rhyming over a track by the dancehall artist Peter Metro. I've still got it somewhere.

I treat my vocals as an instrument.

If I improvise vocals at an early stage of the song, I just kind of listen to the roll, and then I kind of have a little vocal hook.

I just like simplicity. I like simple songs, I like simple chords, simple vocals, simple lead guitar. I just like simplicity. That's just the way I like it.

For a young band about to make a record, make sure you get the vocals right.

I'm making a record that's half stripped down acoustic which is the way I perform a lot and half of it is very produced. It's really hard to keep music simple but I was trying to keep it simple and focus on one or two instruments and vocals.

There's Eddie's conviction and his lyrics and his ideals, and he can just rock straight out. His vocals are incredible. And we all are really competent musicians.

Remixes come very quickly, because you already have the melody and the vocals. I have a great passion for music, so it doesn't matter to me if it's a remix or an original production. I don't think about it as, 'Well, I have to spend three hours on a remix or I have to do something all original.'

I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound.

It's a particular skill, I think, doing backing vocals. You're blending the vocals between the gaps, between the music.

I played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college.

On 'Idol,' I understood that everyone wanted to hear my vocals, so I stuck with the ballads.

It's no longer necessary to slave over the vocals. I don't sing the lyrics until I write them, and singing is the very last thing I do. I record the entire track, and then I worry about lyrics and vocals. The music will suggest where the words are going to a certain extent.