It may come as a surprise, but Frou Frou was really like a kind of little holiday from my own work. Guy and I, we have always worked together, and then over the years, it became clear that we wanted to do a whole album together. It was very organic and spontaneous - just one of those wonderful things that happens.
I've done two albums for Concord Records; one was with Al Jarreau and it did very well for us. The second album was called 'Songs And Stories,' and it had good songs and good performances, but I promised them I would do an album that was more jazz-oriented.
I'm going to continue posting on my YouTube, which is youtube.com/nolansotillo. So I mean, if I get signed and come out with an album, it would be just another... that is a goal of mine.
We really wanted to create an album that had no boundary or limit to it. There's nothing to say that we couldn't release a song that belongs on 'The Stage' 20 years into our career. We want it to be an album that constantly grows with what we want to do, and that's what we did.
Shellac was asked to do a recreation of our first album, but we've always been a band that improvised our sets. That's critical to the way that we function on stage. Whatever the mood takes us on stage can vary from night to night with what you feel like playing.
I used to carry a bag of records down to my friend's house every Friday, and we'd sit down and play all the records I loved, and we'd look at the album covers.
At the end of the day, it is about the album and book and also about setting the record straight, because 'American Idol' has done a great job of defaming my name and throwing a lot of mud at me for the past two years. So that set up a lot of roadblocks for me.
For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.
'90125' was our biggest-selling album worldwide.
Solange's new album, 'A Seat at the Table', is so many things at once: an antidote to hate, a celebration of blackness, an expression of the right to feel it all. After a move to Louisiana and period of self-reflection, the artist joined forces with a range of collaborators to put her new discoveries to music.
'Evita' was four pieces of slick paper and a record album. It's the most scary, to sit down and dictate a musical scene by scene. It was a musical unlike anything I'd ever seen before myself.
I personally wouldn't want my second album to sound like my first; it might sound very rocky or hard rock - and that wouldn't be melancholy. So if people think my music is melancholic, then so be it. It's meant to be uplifting, and I'm just basically saying what needs to be said.
I think my first album was a gift for my birthday and a Faith Hill album; I loved her.
Acting comes first. I would love to make an album. I was at an event... for Dionne Warwick, and we got to go in the studio and go crazy. I love singing, but it's very time consuming. I have to make time for it.
You never know when you put out an album that's unique whether it'll get beat up for it or not.
Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'
Slow, Deep And Hard was a great album, even though it was probably our least selling record.
Every album, I make big records. I'm going to always make an anthem. That's what I do.
I was fixated on Prince's 'Black Album' for a long time.
The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?
All I ever wanted to do was write songs, and I just dreamed of putting out an album and having a single that maybe did alright.
From meeting Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, teaming up, rehearsing, playing selected gigs outside of Britain, coming back into Olympic Studios to record the first album, and then going to America, which we crack open like a nut with the debut record - all that happened, literally, within months.
I feel like, every single decision I make and every single album I make, it's all about letting go. Letting go of the past and just getting on with it.
Success has a lot to do with luck, but it also involves a lot of real hard work. The thing about success is you really can't gauge things by album sales.
Twitter helps me connect to the people who help make my music, or the cycle of an album, complete. Without them experiencing the music, it doesn't really exist, so it doesn't make sense to not involve them.
What people don't realize is that the initial sales of an album isn't where the bulk of your returns come from. It happens over time, sitting in the catalog, picking up commercials, getting included on packages here and there - there's years and years of pipeline money that goes on. That's where real money comes from - building that body of work.
I think 'The Sunset Tree' is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.
Software is becoming no different than a videotape or a record album or a paperback book, and not all of us are ready for that change.
I wrote a song that basically turned into a public service announcement for the fellas out there, like, 'Should you run into this type of woman, run for your life!' So the name of the song is 'Run,' featuring the rapper ScHoolboy Q. It's one of the standouts on the album, in my personal opinion.
I did an instrumental jazz album. That was my first album.
The great music for so many artists - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones - was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray.
I grew up in the era of the concept album. What I do now is pick up on singles, and they are their own complete stories; you don't necessarily have to hear the rest of the album because I don't think albums are created like that anymore. They get songs from all over the place.
I have got an anthology album out. The American version has got the same mixes but the European version, I remixed them in the studio and added a couple of things that I have always wanted to add.
Well you know, I've been into music my whole life, so to be able to put an album together with some of that music was awesome.
When the Greatest Hits came out and we did that tour, I just felt I wanted to take a break, totally. Probably because, as well, I was so young when I got famous. I did album, tour, album, tour, album, tour, then I had a public nervous breakdown where I just lost tons of weight.
I hope everybody thinks they've got the best album. I wouldn't have put mine out if I didn't think it was the best.