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In film, I was surprised when I first saw the movie 'Drive.' I said, 'Oh, God. It sounds great - I love it. Wow, this could be the soundtrack from 'American Gigolo' or 'Cat People.' But I'm surprised that the director would agree with a composer to write that kind of sound.
We should love the fact that we're not just getting one point of view. That we have this diversity in entertainment, and people are not scared to be themselves, and people are not scared to make people uncomfortable, and that's all part of it. That's all part of being free.
The first time I was in Stockholm, everybody was real cordial, but I started having these nightmares that I was being watched by aliens, basically all the time. My theory on it was that it was really, really unnerving to be in a place where English isn't the first language.
You lose nothing by being polite. The answer is 'No', but please say it politely and give the reasons. ... Explain to me why 'No'. Don't change 'No' to 'Yes'. Don't be a fool. If there was a good reason why it is 'No', it must remain 'No', but the man must be told politely.
I remember when I first got the call from Beyoncé to work on the project, and the mood that she was in and she was feeling, she wanted New Orleans-inspired music to be incorporated to the stuff she was doing. Creole-type stuff. Zydeco... She wanted that type of inspiration.
I think that one of the nice things about the Yellow Submarine movie is that it seems to be perennial. People enjoy watching from each generation. And it was like the Beatles themselves. You know the Beatles seem to find new audience each time another generation comes along.
Unless you use the vocoder the way Daft Punk use it, it is very limited. When they sing it's almost human. It sounds sexy. I just used it as an effect. It wasn't because I was not able to sing; I'm not a great singer, but I had some hits as a singer, too. It's a nice effect.
The biggest change in the government's behavior has been because of TV and its ability to show to the world what has happened in this community... that's the biggest change. But without TV... the separation between the government and the people would be much worse than it is.
My thing is: stay creative. And just because somebody starts to pay you, that don't mean all your creativity goes to that, and you don't save none for yourself to be able to do other, bigger and better things and still follow your dreams even if you start off inside of a box.
I love telling stories, but I also am more aware now of how complex reality is and how difficult it is to really explain what happened or how I felt. Maybe that sometimes makes me a little bit vague, because I don't want to really put my finger on anything or set it in stone.
Look at Macklemore! Perfect comparison, we're two artists from the same city who both had meteoric rises at different periods. I probably sold more albums, because in that era you couldn't steal them; you had to go to a record store to buy them. But Macklemore had more power.
I believe how you measure a good movie is how many times you can see it. With comedies, I like to be a producer, because comedies can get corny and go off track real fast. I'm always the 'less is more' guy when it comes to a scene. So I'ma be the one who will keep it grounded.
I love Kanye. He's literally the only person that challenges me. He has an overwhelming love for music also, and that's why he's misunderstood. The boy is a genius. You can be mad all you want, but he loves what you listen to more than you love it. When he lost his mom I cried.
What I want to do is to create a conversation piece and something people remember. I want to make it repetitive enough but not use what I call 'thin thinking' - the kind of thing anyone can do. A hook tells me what you are talking about and it doesn't have to be a lot of words.
Even from the very beginning, the type of fans the Ramones generated were the kind of people who wound up running industry, who became professors and scientists. Our staunchest fans were always a little bit more on the outside, the type of people who didn't fit in with society.
We come from the days when rap used to agitate the mainstream. Now it's more buddy-buddy. That doesn't sit well with me. So what we need is [a bit more] street politics, bringing up issues, agitating you a little bit. And nothing can agitate you more now than a terrorist threat.
I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music - gospel, blues, jazz and R&B - is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you.
There's no such thing as the greatest album ever. There's no greatest book, greatest human, greatest movie. At a push, the closest record to perfection I know is What's Going On by Marvin Gaye or The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds but possibly because they are widely recognized as such.
Some comedians you work with, they only turn on when the camera turn on, and they're like sad-faced clowns when the camera's off. And then, they come alive when the camera come on. And you be like, "Oh, damn. You're not a depressed ball of depression, but you are actually funny."
That big hit 'Get Lucky' is a disco song - not only the melody and the whole concept, but we had one of the great disco guys and one of the best guitarists ever, Nile Rodgers, to play on it. So that's great disco, but a modern disco, because it has great vocoders and synthesizers.
Empty the cup every time and it comes back at twice as full. I developed that attitude when I was very, very young, when I decided I didn't want to be a gangster anymore. Whether it's just shining shoes, I said okay, I'm going to do this better than anybody else did it in my life.
I said 'Whoa, little hottie, I'm not DeLorean, Gambino or Gotti. I don't deal coke, And furthermore you're making me broke. I'll put you in a rehab and I won't tell your folks.' And what do you know, In 18 months she came home, And I let her back in... And now she's sniffing again.
I always tell people that if you gave me a pen and a piece of paper when I was a teenager and said, "Write out how you'd like your career to go," I would have probably short changed myself compared to what it's been for real. I'm just extremely excited about what I've accomplished.
I go to the favelas in Brazil. It's the same in the South Side of Chicago. It's the same, or just more violent. We're trying to get them to stop selling dope. You see kids with AK-47s, and nine-year-olds with nine millimeters. You know, they don't play. They make us look like nuns.
It's like losing a son because I loved Michael and Michael loved me. But you know, as when people grow up and they make their own decisions and they move forward, there's a distance, and I think that Michael in some cases might have gone too far with some of the things he was doing.
It's always weird when people approach me to make an investment. I tell them, 'I don't need any more money. I'm good.' Then I wait for their expression. That part is entertaining, because people look at you like you're crazy when you say you don't need any more money. Who says that?
It's very freaky in Chicago.There's something in the water there, I don't know what it is. But the actual word Chicago means, in the Indian language, garlic. It was just garlic and mosquitoes there. And that is the roughest city on the planet, and I been to every place in the world.
I was offered seven deals from seven different major labels between 2009-2011, and to be quite honest... nowadays, you need a hit record, a great radio team, an amazing PR firm, social media, a big budget, a team that is ready to work extremely hard, and the drive and passion to win!
Money comes and goes, but your inner feelings, your gut feelings, your manhood, your womanhood, whatever, that stays with you. That don't go anywhere. So you either proud of who you are and how you handle situations or you not. If you handle a situation wrong, you, it will haunt you.
Michael Bloomfields' musical understanding was broad and deep, and he knew how to turn that understanding into communication .. his influence was phenomenal ... his story is about those kinds of things and about the people he knew and the audiences he thrilled and the times he had...
You want your parents to say, "Hey, I'm proud of you." When you don't hear that, you learn to compensate. You say, "Hell, I don't need their approval. If I get my music right, I'll have everyone else's approval." I didn't understand it then, but I now know that's what happened to me.
Im probably the only one in the world you can name thats worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. Fly Me to the Moon was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. Im the only one.
That was the coolest thing about 'Baby Got Back.' The establishment didn't embrace the song, which is what kept me from being the next pop guy to fizzle out and get laughed at, get dissed on TV. That helped save me. The fact that MTV banned the record made the record, in a weird way.
Today it feels as if rock'n'roll has sort of turned in on its self, kids are 'rockin' to the same groups their parents do/did. We've seen it recently with The Stone Roses reunion shows, quite unique but is it healthy. Wasn't the 60's about rebelling against the tastes of your parents?
I feel blessed that I found not just a profession, but a 24/7 way of life that I purely love. That curiosity to be current, to listen to the Hozier album, to be early in recognition of a Lorde and spending time with her and Miguel, the pleasure of seeing new talent erupt... I love it.
One of the first people that believed in me, the first person to invest in my talent, me and this guy used to argue all the time in the studio, but at the end of the day, we both realized that we were after the same goal, and that was to make great music. And I'm talking about Eazy-E.
Once in a while, our thoughts drift and fade, back into the recessed hiding places where our memories are stored. At times we recall them- the memories of our loves, our youths, our life experiences. These dreams appear to us, and for seconds, minutes, or hours we are there once again.
In my culture, shoes are more or less the first thing women look at. Women look at the build, and then they look at the shoes. If you don't have nice shoes, you don't have money. When I meet a lawyer, the first thing I look at are his shoes. If he has good shoes, he's getting my money.
When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging.
When I used to work my 9 to 5, I used to go to this abandoned house down the street. It was for sale, but nobody knew it. It was a mansion. Every day, or at least four days out the week, I would just stand on the porch of the house for like a year straight. That was around 2001 or 2002.
The music began, and it was one of those life-changing moments. I saw an artist, Janis Joplin. She was exhilarating. She was vibrating. And she was like no other artist that I had ever seen before... It struck me that hard. Maybe the word is epiphany, when you get that special sensation.
I think when hip hop first started, people were open to it, and groups like Public Enemy and there was groups like Poor Righteous Teachers and all these people who were spitting a lot of knowledge, a lot of history, questioning a lot of societal barriers was starting to be super popular.
One of the most interesting things, at least for me, are the soundtracks for 'The Social Network' and 'Drive.' Basically, it's what I did in 'American Gigolo.' I could have done the music for those movies blindfolded. And one of them won an Oscar, and the other is this massive soundtrack.
I used to love to draw. I didn't want to go to art class because I felt that would be too corny when I was young, but architectural drafting was the cool thing to do because there was more precision. It taught me a lot about building and structures and doorways and frames and windowsills.
I'm probably the only one in the world you can name that's worked with Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, rappers. 'Fly Me to the Moon' was played on the moon by Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. I'm the only one.
Hearing is a subjective experience, but I never really understood that it's the same with seeing as well. I always thought that everything we see is the same for everyone. But having these more psychedelic experiences of being really, really sad made me realize how brittle reality can be.
Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away.
Even when disco went out, I could still make hits. Once I had so much success, every idea became concentrated. I had so much confidence. I knew how the bass should sound, what rhythms would work. The tempos I knew: 110 to 120 BPM. I knew they would dance in the clubs in New York or anywhere.
The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches.
I think what's beautiful when you're looking at artists like Macklemore and you're looking at artists like Ayron Jones, they're proud of Seattle and they're bringing it back. Seattle's a real music town. When you act ashamed of that, you should be pushed outta the game as far as I'm concerned.