A Quote by Ariel Rechtshaid

I think something I've been drawn to about the people I work with is that they seem to be - like me - people who are a little insane, and have to make music. It's not a choice they're making for the sake of vanity - like it's cool to be in a band.
I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television.
To get large groups of people to dance, there needs to be something accessible about the music. The beat can't be too esoteric, but unless we're talking about prog or etherealist composition, I think there's something simplistic about most music. What's completely insane to me is that people would consider music that's simple to be dumbed-down. Couldn't simplicity be a deliberate, smart choice? Those people aren't really listening; they're judging a song off of a beat, off of a pulse.
Another one of my favourite sayings is, you can't handpick your audience. I feel like I'm making music for people who think like me about music, and that takes a lot of different forms. I could never generalise - but I think if I were to generalise, I'd think that you would say that most of my fans are music lovers who are looking for something outside of the mainstream: maybe a little bit hard to pin down, a little bit hard to categorise.
The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you're moved by the fact that it's real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like 'Let It Be' or 'Long and Winding Road' or a song like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'Roxanne,' any of those songs. They sound like people making music.
I feel like it's my responsibility to be the greatest I can be. If I go out there and start making terrible music, I don't expect people to like me. If I'm making great music and there's no reason for people to not like me, that's when it's going to make me upset. People just need to take a chance and listen.
What I love about music, when you can look at something and be like, "Wow, what's this all about?" You can't really picture what these people look like - is it one guy, or a band making music in a garage?
A lot of the themes that I write about are an affirmation of our existence on earth and making people feel like they are not alone, and making them feel like it is OK to be a little bit insane. That has always been sort of my credo in life.
I don't really reach out, it has to be organic. If we're in a studio setting and we're feeling the vibe, that's cool, we can make something. Like, I've been in a bunch of sessions with people I haven't made music with. Like, I just chill. I'm not forcing it. I don't DM people like, 'Yooo, I'm trying to get on a track.'
I've given up trying to understand what people think about me. It seems like a lot of people don't like the music we make and don't know me, or something.
The easiest way to make something cool is to get cool people to do it. Part of this might mean the president has to forget tensions with opponents, or people like Arnold Schwarzenegger who has actually been decent with oil issues. Maybe he needs to pull some of the cool people in and make them model the right behaviors.
I love artists making cool music, regardless of the style.So, if a country artist making really cool music came along and asked me to work with them, I just might say yes, even though I'm not super-knowledgeable about country, like I am about hip-hop. I might do that because the idea is so interesting.
I do find that I'm drawn to people in my life, romantically or not, that have something to teach me. I'm drawn to people who I feel like I can learn from. I'm not really drawn to toxic people - I don't find myself discovering that someone in my life is toxic very often. But there is some sense of being changed by each person that I think I'm drawn to.
One thing that scares me a little bit is that I want people to like my music, but I think a lot of what I like about my own music are these references to things that people don't share nostalgia with me on.
I think you have to satisfy yourself first and foremost. There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
I think of the Ramones when I think of music that can save your life, but I'm not so sure about a band like Fall Out Boy who appears to make music in vein or that, at least, doesn't sound like something they would die for.
When you have the catalog of work, it doesn't feel like you've got one shot to get it right; it's just like, you're making a new document of something at the present time, and it's a living thing, and it changes. It's been cool to help other people make their records, to produce. You get a crash course in things that you don't get as the artist.
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