I've always had an eclectic taste in music. But what I try to do is combine these things in ways that others would never think of, like putting Bun B on an Elton John song.
I love the smell of a theater. The old rooms and the carpet and all that stuff. I love to tell stories. Even before I was doing music, I saw myself as a director. So most of my songs come in a play form, you know, where there are characters and stories, so I like to go beyond just the song sometimes.
'Allegiance' is pretty much a book musical. You know, people talk and then they burst out into song.
Dad wouldn't let me fool with his guitar much, because I'm left-handed, and I'd pick it up upside down. But I remember learning to sing 'Paper Doll,' the Mills Brothers song - this was during the war - and I remember my dad taking me down to one of those little record booths where you could make spoken letters to send home.
From the very, very beginning, we made the decision that 'Tarzan' wasn't going to sing. My co-director, Chris Buck, and I said to each other that we couldn't imagine a half-naked man in the jungle simply bursting into song.
I can write a love song or a ballad, or when I read something and it pisses me off, I know how to go in.
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!
One of the most amazing things about 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' is that every song is an original. There are no covers. I think 'Glee' had to deal with forcing covers into their plotlines. That can be difficult to pull off.
Everyone wants a love song you can dance to.
I'm a real fan of that Foster the People song 'Pumped Up Kicks.'
Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.
When you're walking down the street or in the car just listening to the radio, and you're, like, 'Oh, that's my song.' You want to say, 'Hey Mom!' That never changes.
If I was to play any song for anybody asking, 'What is metal about?' I'd just play 'Master of Puppets.' The progressions and the bridge are brilliant.
'Circuital' was just so much about us as a band. We captured every song live, including the main vocal. That is probably my favorite My Morning Jacket record because it's really the essence of us being us. The solo record is just a completely different essence of just me trying to figure out stuff.
If I make a song where I'm happy, I sound completely mad - I think my voice is better-suited for sadder songs.
I'm one of those people that I make a song... then I write another song and then I'm like, 'But this song is so much better than this song,' and then I kind of ditch that song. It's a long process.
With a track like 'White Christmas,' everybody has done that song in every format you can imagine, so I just looked at the chords at that particular song and what chords would make it work. That's kind of quite a sad song, and I had this idea of someone singing it in the subway, someone who is homeless, old and sad.
I have a music video I was in coming out for M83 for their song 'Claudia Lewis.' It's directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, and I play opposite Lily Collins. It's a pretty edgy intergalactic music video.
It is a very serious consideration for a lyricist to step in there and suggest the meaning to a song. The music is speaking for itself.
I've always had a fascination with pirates. You know, I've written a song completely inspired by I want this to feel like pirates, you know, fighting together, made a music video about it, yada, yada.
Whether I am performing for an elite crowd or a crowd of 20,000 people - the moment someone asks for 'Agneepath,' and I respond 'Agneepath' chahiye?' the noise in the crowd, shows that this song has become huge.
'If I Can Dream' is my all-time favorite Elvis song. It was a big record, but not as big as it could have been. It was one of those records where you'd think it sold 10 billion copies, but it didn't.
Putting out compilation records, buying the right to music is incredibly complicated. You have to find the writer of the song and the publisher of the song - not the singer - and make two separate deals.
Every single morning, I have a person sitting right there next to me in prayer with a tape recorder - and a song comes up every day.
It's not a nice thing to have a song written about you.
I can't wait to see someone else from Louisville make a hit song 'cos that'd be dope. I can only imagine how J Cole would feel if somebody just came out of Fayetteville and started booming with some crazy records.
I've never made a bad song.
I think what makes compelling fiction or cinema is when you're basically taking the most intense moments of experience and you're creating a song or a narrative out of it.
I lost my brother in a car wreck when I was 14 years old. When I decided I wanted to be a country singer, my dad always told me, 'Son, you should write a song about your brother.'
When we're falling in love or out of it, that's when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I'm very happy to do that.
You can hear 'Human Nature' all over our song 'Elevate.' It's an amazing song. That hooky arpeggio in the beginning is great. Unlike most Michael Jackson ballads, even though I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan, this song is kind of restrained. It's not a huge, crazy song you can dance to - it's just this beautiful piece of music.
I was in a karaoke video in 1991, for a song called 'Sukiyaki,' which is a very famous Japanese song, and I've actually heard from people that they've been in bars in Asia where they've seen me come up in the 'Sukiyaki' video that they play behind you. I'm in that. I'm in a karaoke video.
I don't do sessions for myself ever. I'm always working, writing for pop sessions. And what happens is that sometimes I like a song so much, I keep it for myself.
With 'Torches,' I wanted to make a great pop record; I wanted every song to be exciting, not to have too much space, no long pieces of music without vocals. I kind of wanted to write the perfect pop album.
Negativity spreads faster than any Justin Bieber song.
On our first record, man, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just playing. I was over playing. You're as green as you can be with no experience in recording or knowing how sometimes a song can work: when it's too much, when it's not enough, when it's not right.
