I've been a DJ since I was about 13, and I started out as a hip-hop DJ. So I was always playing records that would just get people going. I was just doing parties and high school dances and whatever, and then, progressively, I started making my own music, writing little songs here and there, but it was never anything crazy.
I don't do filler songs. I don't get them. They don't make any sense to me. Why would I literally waste my time on a song that doesn't hold up to the same standards as the other songs on the album? I won't play it live.
For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in 'Paris' were written with Debussy's 'String Quartet,' his 'L'Apres-midi d'une Faune,' or Canteloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne' playing in the background.
'Alligator' was the first record that anyone paid attention to, and it seemed like it was the screamy songs that got us that attention.
We were concerned with having good songs, not just songs that go two hundred miles per hour.
I'm not going to be rockin' n' rollin' when I'm 50 years old. But you can be in your prime on television, compose songs, or write a Broadway play when you're 50.
It's not like making records is terrible. Still, I do find the writing of the songs and the live shows to be the things that give you the most clear picture of what it's all about.
I always want to pick songs that are really crazy rangy, and sometimes those low notes aren't there. But I started taking it way more seriously after a certain point, and I started doing vocal warm-ups every day, even when I wasn't singing, sometimes twice a day.
I've always been a spontaneous singer. And all the stuff that you hear on the end of the songs, what they call the ad libs - that just comes out of my head. That's not thought out at all. I have the verses and the choruses, and then after that it's total improvisation.
Whatever people want to say, we go out there every night, and we give tribute to the songs that my brother wrote, to Ronnie and Allen Collins and Steve Gaines and Leon Wilkeson and everybody. We pay tribute every night to those people who have gone on.
I have been consistent by staying true to who I am and will continue to sing the type of songs that those who have continued to support my career expect from me.
Apple, iTunes, and streaming services have made the single a more easy thing to access. What that's done has made the album as a collection of songs almost meaningless. But an album that has a concept or story or reason to be an album, if anything, has more meaning now than it ever has.
Sometimes my songs wander off a bit and are not always coherent.
A guitar for me is pretty much strictly in the context of writing songs for my band, coming up with ideas with my band, and then being able to perform those songs as best as I can on stage - that's what the guitar for me has always been.
This band has a weight to it. Our songs feel important to play... That was missing in my life without Sleater-Kinney.
I think when people make a record with a goal in mind - like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature - that gets in the way of writing great songs.
I started out writings songs for what I thought was going to be a maximum of five people down our local pub.
History shows that all protest movements rely on symbols - boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, flags, songs. Symbolic action on whatever scale - from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to wearing a simple wristband - is designed to disrupt our everyday complacency and force people to think.
I'm interested in figuring out what freedom songs would sound like in 2016.
It's not just songs and glamour. It's sweat, blood, broken toes, and mistakes... It's life.
A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics.
My career was really odd, because I literally had a greatest hits album out and nobody knew who I was. They knew the songs, but they didn't know me.
With songs I almost see the images, see the action, and then all I have to do is describe it. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song.
Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces, hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.
I listen to music a lot on the treadmill - I would test 'Raditude' songs out on the treadmill.
I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs.
I'd actually say that every musician is a human being, and that not everybody likes being social. But with music, there are all these ingredients to the business that have nothing to do with writing songs or playing an instrument.
I have written some songs, but I would really call what I've done poetry at the end of the day, because I'll sit with my guitar for hours and hours on end for, like, a week and then I won't touch it for a month. I also just have no confidence. And you know what? I don't have time, because I'd rather be doing other things, like knitting.
Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.
One of my most popular songs, 'Satellites,' I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.
At 11, I went to live with my maternal nan and granddad temporarily, after my parents separated, and Nan would let me have a go on her piano. My grandparents were like something out of the Noel Coward play, 'This Happy Breed,' and it was magical to hear them sing music-hall songs.
My father had a passion for love. It's mostly what he talked about in his songs, and I still have his old records today.
I can remember - barely - when Elton John was still a good songwriter, or at least capable of writing good songs.
In terms of the music, it feels almost like trouble's a good thing - you never know when a song is going to surprise you. We look for these subversive moments in songs.
Someone like Katy Perry - I like her writing because I listen to music as a songwriter. I like a lot of her songs - like, 'Firework' is a song that I think I could write.
I am glad that my fan believed in me and stood by me in my hard times and continued to enjoy my songs. That's the real victory for me.
