If you end up spending more time in the studio than you do on the road, that's not a good balance for me. Because I think when you're in the studio, you need to come off the road and go in the studio and that's when you're applying your best. That's when you've got the best attitude, best energy, all that stuff.
I used to carry a notebook to the studio. I don't do that no more 'cause I don't have the time to write anywhere but right there in the studio on the spot. So when you hear my stuff, know that I wrote it in the studio.
All I ever hoped for was freedom of choice and to not have to just do work because I needed to pay the bills. If you can, weave your way into a studio in a situation where it's supportive of the other work you wanna do. Also, there is caliber and weight in studio films, and I think the ideal is to get that balance right: Do a studio film, go away and do something that is smaller.
I know of some guitar-based rock bands that refuse to record anything that they can't play live. But some of the best stuff I come up with are studio-based performances - bringing out whatever accident I had in the studio and building a song around that.
There's something fun about the road because there's no 9 to 5. But I do find myself making the effort to take some time off. As much as I don't want to, I have to. I need to reset. I love weeks off, because I can go in the studio and just be creative again.
At a certain point you have to make a decision in your life about where will you best serve, and I decided that I would best serve as a producer as opposed to a studio executive. There are many upsides to being the studio executive, but one of the downsides is that you get removed from the actual process of making the movie.
The studio and road both have their charms. The studio allows me to be a mad scientist and the tour lets me feel like James Bond.
I'm very critiqueful of my own stuff, and I kick everybody out the studio when I'm singing, no one is in the studio, it's just me and the engineers, no one else in the studio when I'm doing my thing.
I always have days off before and after I go to the studio. That's really important for me that I know that I have days off after, 'cause then I can give my everything when I'm in the studio. I love being in the studio and being able to think, 'Okay, I'm not doing anything tomorrow.'
When I'm in the studio I often hunger for the road. And when away I long for the efficiency of the studio.
I hate studios. A studio is a black hole. I never use a studio to work. It's very artificial to go to a studio to get new ideas. You have to get new ideas from life, not from the studio. Then you go to the studio to realize the idea.
I run into viewers all the time who have no idea I've moved to N.Y.C. I think, for many of them, a studio is a studio is a studio.
We're always in the studio pretty much, either at home or on the road, trying to come up with new ideas and stuff.
Your intention going in is to do the best you can. You go in and do your work, day to day, the best you can. But it's entirely up to the director and the editor and the producers and the studio how it turns out.
I just love being in the studio, and that's kind of what I do when I'm not on the road. I'm just in the studio messing with stuff, and I love playing all the instruments.
If I have a song that I feel is really one of my best songs, I like it to have a formal studio recording because I believe that something being officially released on a studio record gives it a certain authority that it doesn't quite have if it comes out on a live album or is just a part of your show, you know.
If you're in a commercial studio, you've got to be out by the end of the day, and it can be paralyzing, but if you have your own studio you move fast because you don't care. If you don't care, you can be patient, and also think fast.