Quotes About Artistry

I felt like I was building this world brick by brick with each layer of instrumentation I was doing. I could see it growing in some ways. I feel like most writers feel the same way. You're almost living inside of this magic world that you're building.

The way I make music is often to kind of treat instrumentation like I would a sample.

Most of my instruments are handmade.

We play the instruments we love.

We get accused of inauthenticity because we play the instruments we play.

Banjos, dobros, and acoustic guitars are not our first instruments.

I write almost every single part of my songs, even the actual drum parts sometimes, whether they be simple or layered with many different instruments.

I play no instruments.

I play a bunch of instruments.

I like people writing great songs on guitar or piano or what have you. I miss people getting on stage with real bands and real instruments and expressing themselves that way instead of with computers and technology.

I thought it would be interesting to play classical music on rock instruments.

Fans want real songs, they want real experiences, and they want real instruments.

We write our own songs, play our own instruments.

I've got about three or four rooms of records, and two rooms of instruments.

The 'Discovery' album is really complex and really rich and really full of instruments, different parts and stuff.

I don't love using synthesizers, but I do use synthesizers. I'm more inspired by acoustic instruments - as long as there's something making the sound it's something I really like.

You can get insular with fashion.

When I'm making a song that's very Grimes, it just feels very insular and it feels weird to have someone else do something on it.

The songs of mine that don't work, the ones that I wouldn't consider playing live for instance, fail to integrate their idiosyncracies. It's not that they fail because they're boring, but because they overreach.

I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn't writing my own things or directing my own movies.

What I miss is a time when hip-hop music had integrity; there was some kind of message. Not in all the music, because it's not for that, but there was at least something that got through that had some content that was sensible and positive, not just hooky junk-food rap.

My whole thing with EDM is, if you have integrity and yet you regress in how you've been as an artist, there's something not quite right there. If you're just here to get paid, I find that very culturally indifferent.

I do like designing clothes that are - not exactly lofty but intellectual in their sexiness.

Mos Def is one of the most creative, intelligent human beings I've had the opportunity to work with. He is fun. The entire time, he would go in and out of different characters, just for the fun of it. Awesome energy.