Quotes About Artistry

The composers know what they want from you. So as a vocalist you have got to trust them and surrender yourself to their vision.

I get to focus on being a musician sometimes, and I get to focus on being a vocalist sometimes.

I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things.

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.

Elvis inspired my sideburns, but Little Richard inspired me for vocals.

I feel that in the underground world, there's not enough vocals out there.

Pat Simmons and I always had a great blend together. We did the background vocals on a Little Feat track called 'Red Streamliner,' and that was great fun. I always really loved the way it turned out.

I want to make an album with just great beats and big vocals and just amazing lyrics.

I'd gotten used to recording background vocals perfectly, doing 18 takes of them until they line up. Not recognizing the inherent beauty in each performance, but just making something good.

It's like a painter with various layers of paint. I start with a drum loop and add keyboards, and then melodies start to take shape. The vocals happen later. I've never really done therapy before, but it's a form of therapy. Everything else falls away.

When I first started writing songs, I never intended on singing. I didn't really consider myself a singer at all. I was just kind of recording the demo vocals as a holding place until someone else came and sang.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn't even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?

When making the first album, I think I wrote a song about every six months. The first album was so much about the vocals carrying it.

I always layer my vocals a lot. I sing a minimum of three layers of the same line every time, and then it's always one or two or sometimes even more harmonies.

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

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 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.

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 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.

I don't believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that's dishonest. For example, I'm not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don't, what you hear is pretty much what I sing.

There are a lot of people using technology that are playing to a click with backing vocals already stuck in there on some computerized thing that runs along in time to the show so they have these amazing vocals that are only partly the guys on stage producing them at the time.

If I'm playing with Ozzy it's just a guitar thing. But with the vocals I feel like I'm studying for the SATs.