The first year with the success that we had and let me point out that the time frame changes depending on which decade you look at it. In the seventies acts were kind of expected to do an album a year. If you look at the Beatles they were doing three a year.
A good producer brings out the best in the artist he's working with. You shouldn't be able to listen to something and say, 'So-and-so produced this album.'
How do we keep it up? Because that's what we do; we're musicians, and we love to play and make music. And with every album, we get better, and with every tour, we get better.
With Dollars And Cents on the album, we had it as a band jam and I sometimes spend evenings playing with records over the top of things we were working on to see what works.
I like listening to good music - and I can't stop playing my album.
You know, my first album, some of those jokes I'd done for twelve years because I couldn't throw 'em out.
I knew I was destined to be a rock star. I just knew it, like I've always had the power of foresight. I feel right now exactly the way I felt after I finished mixing my first solo album 'New York Groove'.
Sensitive, humbug. Everybody thinks I'm sensitive. Wait until they hear my new album.
If Frank and The Beach Boys got together and did a Super Session album, it would be a gas.
Every single note on this album is there for a reason.
The album is a thing that you can hang out with between shows. I think that it's really nice to give people something they can enjoy in a private situation or walking around, just as the soundtrack of their lives.
My dad bought a Beatles tape when I was in fifth grade, and that was the first time I ever really - I mean I was into music, but that was the first time it really blew my mind. When I heard the 'Red Compilation,' which wasn't like a proper album, I thought, 'music was more than I had ever thought it was before.'
The people I chose to work with me on this album are there because I have a personal relationship with them.
If I cut an album now and sell it for ten bucks, I can put seven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket.
Recently, I've been working on anew album of material, which should be out in the new Millennium. I'm not sure which song will be put out as a single, but I'm still hoping to get another record in the charts.
You don't try to get influenced by everything that's going on with all the other music around you. You don't listen to the radio - I mean, I don't. When I get ready to do an album, I don't listen to anybody else; I don't wanna be influenced.
Also there's two sides of it, I mean, a band like us, at our level and the way we have to promote ourselves and usually radio just completely turns their back on us, at the same time I think Mp3s help promote us somewhat, spreading the word about the album and stuff.
I don't own an ABBA album, and I never had the urge to go and buy one. If you're just talking about well crafted pop songs, they were fantastic.
And then the last album, 'Get It', was done over a shorter period of time and I started using other musicians, as opposed to playing all the instruments myself like I did on the other two.
I have always been infatuated with country music. Country music tells stories, and I've always loved to tell stories. I said that when I establish myself as an artist that can do pretty much anything I want to do in music, I'm going to make a country album.
Putting out my album on my own label has been a great experience for me. It's been very inspiring. It's like a new start for me and having all this creative freedom is so liberating and exciting.
The new album is a childhood dream come true. Got to sing with Ronnie Spector, got to cover a bunch of songs that were influential in drawing a line between the punk form and original rock and roll.
The experiences of promoting my first album were really something; there is so much illusion in my environment (touring and pop music) that I wanted to clear away.
That's why I named my album 'Finding Forever,' because that's what I was thinking about: What did I want to contribute to this world that would live beyond my physical existence?
I understand that people want to just listen to a track and put it on their iPod, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but why can't that exist hand in hand with an album? They're such different experiences.
I would like my album to be on the pop side with a little bit of soul. I would like to make music that is on the top of the charts right now.
You will in the future hear me on a pop album, but that's just the experimental side of me.
I have recorded nine tracks for a new album which I financed myself and am looking for a home for.
But when I record my next studio album, of course I'll do the lead vocals.
My first album didn't come out until I was 27, which in pop years is late, you know. But when it came time to arrange it, I became a kid in a toy shop. I had a harp and a saxophone quartet and a symphony orchestra. I went berserk for a time.
My favorite Kanye album is 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.'
I wanted out of my record deal with EMI. They wanted me to record one type of album; I wanted to record the type of music I wanted to make.
There's always pressure on the second album - this one has to be the big one.
My 1974 album 'Mind Over Matter' was a detailed thing about Watergate. I always had some righteous indignation.
Well it has been very exciting and very changing as well. Celebrating the 40th year and having the album out and the Channel 4 documentary and I resigned from Blind Date.
Van Morrison is probably, at this point in time, my biggest influence as a vocalist. When we were making our last album I had a vinyl copy of 'Veedon Fleece' in the vocal booth in front of me, in the dorky sense. I think there were candles around, which is really tacky, but hey, I needed to channel Van the Man!
