A Quote by Charlie Benante

I just went into my studio and started to compile stuff. I was so happy with what was coming out that good momentum just carried over and when I would listen back to some of the riffs and some of the ideas, I was completely happy because I felt like, "wow, this was a breakthrough!" The ideas and the songs were really strong and I couldn't wait to show everybody the stuff.
Having really good ideas comes from being able to listen to everybody else and see what their ideas are, because they're coming from a completely different place. That's always been important. It's part of being in a band.
The thing that everybody loves about the 'Burnett Show' was that you felt like you were really there - all that fun stuff stayed in the show, and I think that's why everybody remembers it so fondly because that just doesn't happen anymore on television.
Just like I described in health care, yeah, somebody comes in, they got new ideas, maybe ideas that are completely opposite of my ideas. Maybe some of it goes, maybe some of that progress goes back. Maybe they think of some things we didn't think of, and so in some other areas - we can learn something.
Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.
I don't feel pride like that with my own stuff. When I listen to my own music I'm happy with it, but when for example, I hear the beginning of "Last Stand" and I hear Kwabs sing the first line that I helped to write, I just think, wow. I can't believe I was involved in that. I can't even explain what it was like being in that room while we made that. That was really some magic.
I love dressing up. I like going out and buying some crazy stuff. I like stuff that's new, innovative and weird. I just pick out stuff that is unique and anything that I'm really diggin'. I don't really care if it's kind of out there. That's what I'm about. I like picking stuff that is really different.
Working on 'Laguna' was great because just being in production and shooting stuff and having to go back and relive some things, and there were some lines here and there that the producers would want us to say, and just kind of, you're forced to recreate moments, and just working on the show was so much fun.
In the beginning, me and my bandmates just did stuff on our own - we had smoke bombs, we'd dress as crazy and as weird as we possibly could, just to give ourselves a different ambience. But when we started making money, of course, the ideas started getting bigger. We were big fans of Broadway; we were like, "Man, when you go see a Broadway show, you just get pulled right out of reality; you're into their world for a two-hour period. It would be nice if we could do that onstage with a music concert".
Some of the best rock riffs ever written were by Jimmy Page, and I can't really name the songs, but some of the stuff he did on his first and second records is beyond brilliant.
I was always directing; even back when I started on stage. I was always throwing out ideas. I just love creating stories and for some reason people would listen.
I'm always writing something. I've got so much stuff, I don't know what to do with it. Some of it will be Strokes, some of it will be I don't know what - stuff for pop singers. TV themes. I've got a jar stuffed with songs, all these ideas that are just me humming into a recording device.
I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that's when you come over all humbug. It's happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you.
I think the best songs that come to me are ones that you sort of listen for. The ones - when I listen to some of my old stuff, I can tell when I had a good idea, but I forced it through, and I can hear myself - the bit that I've written, which sounds clunkier than the stuff that just sort of comes.
Some of the stuff I get the scripts for, I read it and I'm like, "Wow." We're doing some crazy stuff on this show [Legends of Tommorow]. it's going to be amazing.
Our third partner [with Neal Dodson] was this other guy called Corey [Moosa], and he came in with good ideas and also some access to money, and so we joined forces and drew up a business plan and got financing for the beginnings of the company. We had no idea what we were doing really. We just started looking through material and started producing our own stuff.
It's funny, I don't really feel that nostalgic. I only recently started putting up some photos from some of the sessions I've done over the years and some of the Garbage sessions because my daughter, who's 10-years-old, when she was about 6 or 7 she was more curious about what I do. I have all these platinum records and stuff, they've all just been in boxes in storage for years but I started just digging through those things because I sort of want her to be aware of my past. I never really put the old recordings on and listen to them and go, "Oh that sounds great."
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