Quotes About Artistry

Whatever sounds best to the ear, to the whole team of people who are producing the song, is what works eventually.

I play the way I do because it allows me to come up with the sickest sounds possible. That's the point now isn't it?

A song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate.

I am producing sounds that people are not used to hearing from the harp.

God would have to beam into me what I was doing and what the album actually sounded like because usually when I start a project like that, I already know what the album sounds like before I start it.

When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.

I do and re-do things that I used to do in a flash, because I want to be more perfectionist about these things. Maybe it sounds pompous and pretentious, but that's the way I feel.

Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.

I think the indie-rock world is very creative. They're always looking for something new, and I think of all the instruments we have in the world, the ones that are the most creative and interesting are the electronic ones. There are so many sounds and plug-ins you can use.

I get most of my inspiration from older records. Most of the records that I listen to were probably made before I was born, and I was born in the mid-'70s. I don't know why, exactly, I'm drawn to those sounds.

I just don't think I'm equipped to soundtrack the times. There might be someone out there who can do that, but I haven't cracked it.

'One Part Lullaby.' It was our big major-label record. People reference it quite a bit, but it did absolutely nothing. It's like the 'Kids' soundtrack. It did nothing. It didn't start anything for me.

I love Peter Gabriel, and I've come so close to working with him a few times. We were on a movie soundtrack together, but we didn't actually write together.

I am always working on new material with my production partner Phil Murphy in our guise as Man Ray; we do a lot of soundtrack work & some great collaborations.

I will never, ever forget the electricity I felt the first time I listened to the 'Purple Rain' soundtrack - and many times since.

I always been inspired and aspire to inspire through the music. I feel like I've always made the soundtrack to a movement.

Some artists can work under one guise, whether it's a name or a band or doing film soundtracks, put all of their ideas in one pot and move on. Me, I need to compartmentalize.

I think that purists may regard the '80s and Jerry Goldsmith being the quintessential example of film scoring, but that was also a very prominent type during a time when soundtracks were purely songs, and there was very little score.

Proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist!

This project, 'Electronica,' is about working with people who are a strong source of inspiration to me.

First of all, I want people to understand that I'm here to create for them. To create music for people so they'll know that I'm a source of love. And they can depend on my name.

The trouble is, once you say something about a source, then you've pegged it down, and so now I'm reluctant to say anything. If I say I developed 50 different shapes from Mississippian tumuli, that doesn't mean they're copies of tumuli - I'm not ripping off those shapes.

Whether it's music or acting, that creativity all comes from the same source.

The 'sent' folder of my email program is really my biggest inspiration and my biggest source of lyrics. That's where I go to pick up a lot of the lyrics that I'm writing.