When I discovered Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I could explore the records that inspired me on a different level and that led me to Joni Mitchell, who is maybe my favorite of all time, and Warren Zevon. Those artists that wrote the lyrics that you try for.
For someone like me, who has grown up with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, it's hard not to invest a lot of myself in what I do.
Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.
I do own CDs by Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell, but I don't think of them as being major influences on my writing.
And for some reason, when I'm sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that's actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up.
I've always played acoustically - it's how I learned. I grew up listening to Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Dylan and what have you.
As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.
My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.
I didn't grow up listening to him - my parents listened more to Neil Young and Joni Mitchell - but I lived in a flatshare for two years, and my flatmate loved Leonard Cohen. He would always play him when he got home from the studio or something.
If you listen to 'Electric,' 'Entourage,' and 'Been With A Star,' all those records are records that I dug into the crates for to help me create that feeling of old funk. No one makes records like that anymore.
There really are two different schools of songwriting-American and Canadian. It's interesting. You guys have this history of guys like Paul Williams and Jimmy Webb, and they're different than Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. All those weird voices come out of Canada. That's because it's so cold here we can hardly open our mouth. We get much less light in Canada. No wonder the writing's dark.
My dad would play me all of these records: Miles Davis records, John Coltrane records, Bill Evans records, a lot of jazz records. My first exposure to music was listening to jazz records.
I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell's version of "A Case of You." My mom was a huge Joni Mitchell fan.
Not to be rude to my sisters, but I don't listen to drag music. I listen to everything from punk to Italo disco to Appalachian country music, but I don't know what their records sound like. I hardly listen to my own records. I'm like Cher!
I don't generally like things that are too pedestrian. But at the same time, and if I'm in the right mood, hey - I ain't gonna lie - I listen to Joni Mitchell. I listen to 'Blue,' I listen to Miles Davis.
I've put out records over the years, whether it's with Blackfield or No-Man or Bass Communion or Porcupine Tree, that are pop records, ambient records, metal records, singer-songwriter records.