Coming from my bedroom in San Antonio to this big world and going from singing covers off my laptop to making music in this nice studio, making professional-sounding music - it's just weird.
You don't need any brains to listen to music.
I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.
I first came to Brazil in the Sixties. Then I started coming back every year since touring most of the country. I grew to love it, the people, the music. I thought this is where I belong. I've been living in Brazil for the past 23 years. I call it my stress-free country.
I just started as a part of the public school music program. I took lessons at the school every Friday and was a part of the school band. I was just a normal kid taking instrumental lessons at school, nothing special.
Music always came first. I never set out to be an actor.
Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.
I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It's a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That's a real danger.
However in countries outside of Japan I think game music is still a potential growth market that has not yet developed to the extent that we are seeing in Japan.
What I'm trying to do is put back into rap music what's missing - which is the good part, the fun part, that party part.
Most of my early records were not cohesive at all, just collections of demos recorded in different years. 'Odelay' was the first time I actually got to go in the studio and record a piece of music in a continuous linear fashion, although that was written over a year.
In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.
I didn't have nothin' going for me... school, home... until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.
I don't really listen to music. I don't. I watch television.
I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.
My advice is: if you've got to be miserable to write great music, then drive a truck.
I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't.
I am not facing the problem of emigration. I want my music to be acknowledged here first of all, in this country: after that, we shall see - perhaps the question will than become urgent.
You have to give kids something to rebel against. You can't like their music - you have to call it noise. It's incumbent on a parent.
We always thought the Tom Tom Club could change to anything, but it acquired this image, which was cartoon animation and this real light-hearted dance music.
Taking employment out of the country - now that's taking away jobs. These shows employ a lot of people: production, post-production, music supervisors, camera people. A hundred people or more.
It's of course important to mention that when DJing, I'm building my own story through the music. I'm figuring out what song to play next, what song to play after that, and how the two will blend together. How the emotion is going to develop from one song to another. So I first build that storyline.
The place that I'm trying to come from and where I'm trying to make music from is when I feel like I'm able to somehow, like, transcend it all and just speak right to God.
I can't live without my music player.
When I was driving home after registration, I heard this song on the radio, a guy singing about not ever going to class in college and always hanging out and singing for his friends. I laughed and said, I can relate, because it was so much like me. I realized right then I would pull out of school and pursue a music career.
Willow and I definitely talked about doing a collaboration. She really loves rock music, so she wants to come on and get crazy with me on a track. Which I would love, because she has a fantastic voice.
Elvis' early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits.
I grew up right in the heart of Treme, so it was a real music neighborhood, and there was a bunch of bands like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band around.
It's very easy for me to keep a low profile because the focus I feel is always on the music. Success and fame are two different things. And so I feel the success is always towards the music, which means that I can have a very normal and private lifestyle.
Music is not just a part of my everday life, I'm surrounded by it every minute.
I kind of consider myself a chameleon in music. I love all sorts of music.
I try to make my music have the quiet spaces of folk, the intimacy, and the energy of rock.
I don't read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear.
God has been my number one inspiration. I also look up to Will Smith and Jamie Fox who are also personal friends of mine. They give me great career advice. I would also include Chris Stokes, as a filmmaker and music producer. I've been working with him since I was eight.
Let's have the music that will open the door to millions of people... the kind of music that will not make people think only of the song or even of the singer... not music that is confined to the merely personal.
Music to me is something I did as a hobby.
