My favourite piece of music is actually 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' as a whole. For me, it's the most perfect and brilliant example of rock song writing.
I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.
My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties.
I publish my own music. I'm creating my own songbook. It works that way for me; I'm very independent.
My initial training was on the keyboard - mainly the great American songbook. In junior high, during the day, I was a classical clarinetist, but after school, I played New Orleans jazz and big-band music.
Donna Summer was one of the strongest female singers in pop music. She was very underrated as a vocalist and a writer, and her songbook is just outrageous.
For me, I always have looked at 'indie' as a term of 'independence.' Never associated a sonic gesture with that in the same way that pop music has always meant 'popular' to me; you know, it didn't define a sound.
I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.
Every kid has a laptop; everyone can make music, so in order to stand out, I think it's important to find that sonic identity, I think my sonic identity - and mine is finding these weird sounds that may not necessarily sound that musical, and make them sound musical.
Sonic Youth was a collective. There's something fantastic about the idea of making music is a social activity.
When Sonic Youth wrote music, we would rehearse for months before anybody heard anything.
When Sonic Youth writes music, we write everything in a very communal way. It doesn't matter who brought something in initially; it all gets transformed by the band.
When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point.
I like music to soothe me.
Back in the day, I was afraid to speak out. When I get music behind me, it feels like I can soothe the hurt and put it in vocals and say it to the room the way I feel it.
We want to get this good music to as many people as possible because I think it heals, it soothes, I think music is incredibly important, especially in today's chaos.
My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.
During the middle of sophomore year, my friends and I would get bored at lunch, so we would film videos on my computer webcam of us dancing in the gym to Christmas music.
I can stay in the bath for, well, the longest has been seven or eight hours. I get completely set up with my laptop so I can watch 'The Sopranos,' put out some scented candles, music. I have a towel nearby so I can dry my hand to change the music or the TV. I make a little heaven for myself. And then I just refill and refill.
Soul music is timeless.
