The 'Hey Monday' songs were always glammed up to be this big production, and I definitely want there to be some bells and whistles like synth or drum loops, but for the most part, I want a simple yet powerful production.
If people want bells and whistles and all of that, there are bells and whistles available. If they don't want bells and whistles there are places to go where they are not available.
I would push for more production and Steve Miller would say, "Why do you want to have more production when you have real songs? You don't want to cover up the song."
My goal from the very beginning was just to write good songs that don't require any production to be felt or understood. I wanted to be able to sit in a room with a guitar and play the song from beginning to end and have it be as impactful as if you heard the studio version with all the bells and whistles.
I definitely want to start my own production company at some point. I'm actually teaming up with Funny or Die to put together a TV show right now, that I can't really talk about because it's still in the very preliminary stages, but if it pans out this will be the first project under my production company, which I have yet to name.
The terrain of the face is the most dynamic thing you can point the camera at, to me. I love production design and bells and whistles and all of that. I love a technograin as much as the next gal, but a great actor's face? What else should we be looking at?
Like, when I write a song, the song comes first before production. Everything is written on an acoustic guitar so you can strip away everything from it and have it be equally as entertaining and good without the bells and whistles.
Actors play a small part in all the things that go into the making of a movie. I want to know about pre-production, post-production, shot divisions - everything.
I was given a lot of homework: I had to practise ironing as a synth, practise washing up as a synth, cooking a meal as a synth. It's definitely the most prep I've had to do for a role.
I'm a big fan of new production techniques and new sounds. That's kind of what has been my focus out here; making sure that the songs can stand away from the production, however it's produced.
The production process has a great way of bringing songs to light and that's a big part of it.
I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.
I learned how to play the drums. When we were in pre-production, when we were still in LA, I had a couple of drum lessons and then some in Toronto. I got the one beat down and that was it.
A lot of other people wanted a free production UNIX with lots of bells and whistles and wanted to convert MINIX into that. I was dragged along in the maelstrom for a while, but when Linux came along, I was actually relieved that I could go back to professoring.
I've been walking to school and trying to figure out what's going on there; some of the production and songs are so ridiculous. I want to get inside that.
I like writing, and I enjoy the production part a lot, actually. It gives you longevity in a career, where you know sometimes you might not always have the time to do the parts you want to do.
Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.