A Quote by David Berman
For the first 12 years of recording I would finish the album, then on the day it came out I'd never hear the songs again.
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This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.
The key moments in your life are when you realize how exciting music can be, like when you hear Nevermind for the first time. I grew up in the '70s and '80s. I was introduced to hip-hop when it first came out. Hip-hop music will always be my first love. That's why I love playing the drums. Any day of the week, I would rather listen to a hip-hop album than a rock album.
I used to write songs that mimicked other songs that I would hear as a kid, cos I was 12 years old when I was writing those, right. And you hear a radio so all I'd write about was [sings] "hey girl, look at you", you know what I mean. I think that even doing that made it easier for me to write non-personal songs because, from a kid, I never wrote personal songs, they were always like mimicking. And now I'm just trying to understand my writing and where it's coming from.
When I wrote those first songs for the Truckers, songs like 'Outfit' and 'Decoration Day,' those were strong songs, very strong songs. But had I been in the position of writing an entire album at that point in time, I don't think the whole album would have been of that kind of quality.
I began the process of recording myself seriously in the fall of 1999. If I could finish an album of my own music, I would. Five years later I am happy to say I have.
Here's some free advice; like the folkies of yore, you need to be not just a writer of songs, you need to be a lover of songs, a listener of songs and a collector of songs. If you hear a song in a club that knocks you out or you hear an old recording of a great song you never knew existed, it does not diminish you to record it; it actually exalts you because you have brought a great song from obscurity to the ear of the public.
When we finish this tour we are going to begin writing and go into the studio to hopefully have a brand new Foreigner album out in early spring next year. This will be the first Foreigner album out in about ten years.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
After playing so many songs in churches for eight or nine years, I've learned what songs people react to. Then I just had fun with the arrangements. That's how this album came together.
A lot of people put out an album, and you never hear from them again. They're working a day job or doing whatever to survive through life.
Alan Menken took me to his studio and we went through his trunks of songs and put together an album of stuff that people and stuff that people don't know. I'm very proud with the way it came out. I had no idea what it would be like to do an album and that process was grueling and tedious but it was very rewarding. I would do it again if I had the chance.
What I've learned in the past 12 years of recording (I made my first CD at 12) is how important it is to find one's authentic voice.
I wouldn't just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.
Songs are like my children, from the concept phase, to writing, to recording, then editing and all of the work that went into it and the millions of listens. Then you move away from it and you never see it again.
In high school, some of the guys were really into music. When I first joined the team as a sophomore, I was blown away when we came out for our first home match?I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it. The seniors would bring their whole stereo system. We started by yelling and stuff inside this little room just off the gym; then the coaches said, "Ready. Go!" We threw open the door and came running out. Even when I hear the songs now I get all jacked up.
My big regret is that my brother and I didn't start doing what we did like, 10 years before. I feel like then we would have sold some records. We started pretty late - I was 27 when our first album came out.
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