A Quote by Art Alexakis
Being a musician, especially at the major label where you work for so long, it becomes a cycle. Write a record, make a record, tour. It's just this cycle, and I don't think there's any life built into it with time to assimilate what's going on in front of you and what's going on in your head.
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With a Grammy, if you're releasing your record with a major label, you have a chance with any record. You also have a very long shot with every record.
I call it "being interrupted by success." We had done The Soft Bulletin, which came out in 1999, and we knew we that were gonna make another record before too long. But in between this, we were still in this mode of kind of just - not re-creating what we could be, but kind of doing different things. For the longest time in the Flaming Lips we were like, "Make a record, go on tour. Come back, make another record," and you know, I think, frankly, we were kind of like, "There's more to life than just recording records and going on tour."
I've seen too many people who have been artists for a long time, on that cycle of record-promote-tour, and you look up and 10 years of your life is gone. I didn't want that to happen to me.
This cycle of make a record, tour has been going on for 20 years now. I don't even know why I do it sometimes. Do I need more money? Do I need more platinum and gold records? The only thing I can think of is ego.
The effect of the post-Enlightenment project for human society is that all human activity is absorbed into labor. It becomes an unending cycle of production for the sake of consumption. The modern concept of "built-in obsolescence" makes this clear. The cycle of production and consumption has to be kept going, and the work of the artist or craftsman who aims to create something enduring becomes marginal to the economic order.
I don't think that much anymore in terms of 'write a record, record a record, tour a record,' because in my own mind, things have changed, in that I'm just an ongoing artist. I'm not quite sure what the next project needs to be until it presents himself, and then I know. I just follow dutifully while I'm being led.
The live thing is separate from the record for me. I have to figure out a way to make the songs work live. It's always going to be different than it is on a record, because every record I've made, there are people playing parts on there that are not going to be coming on tour with me. As much as still feeling connected to it, it's more like rediscovering.
It was three breakups going on at the same time. It was breaking up with my band, and my boyfriend, and right after that, my record label. I was arguing a lot with my record label during that whole time, so maybe they all affected each other. This record, Mondo Amore, came out of a time that was really heartbreaking and confusing, and that's why I switched the sound up a lot, to make it sound a little bit grittier and more raw.
My life used to be record, tour, record, tour. You can never say no as a freelance musician. I was on the road 200 days a year.
You sometimes get the feeling that people think getting back together after a hiatus to write and record a record is work, you know, arduous and unpleasant. Being able to write and record - that's a privilege. I don't forget the long days I spent working in a restaurant, when I wanted to be done so I could go home and work on a song.
I think, taking too long to work on a record, you sort of lose some of the feeling, so I write as fast as I can; it's just this manic phase where I'm by myself and or on tour, and I write, and I write.
The oxygen cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, the water cycle - all of these are linked to the existence of life in the sea.
Traditionally the show must go on which is a stupid thing to say, but that in a nutshell is what's going on. We have a new record out; if we won't tour, the new record dies. It's reality - it's what business is nowadays. You just need to tour to sell your albums.
In theory, when you're working with a record label, you're just borrowing their money. And that's basically how the record industry works, right? It's like, you borrow $100,000 from a record label, so you don't make any money until you make back that money for them. In theory, they have you held hostage, so you've got to do every little stupid thing that they want you to do.
You get caught up in a cycle at some point, so I broke the cycle and decided; I'm going to really write a lot of books, because I need to get in touch with that part of myself in order to make more music.
I'm usually going to make a record, finish a record, start a record or start a tour or between tours.
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