A Quote by Dierks Bentley
My wife is cool enough to let me write about personal things, to be a songwriter exploring the shadowy sides of love.
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I think people appreciate a songwriter who shows different sides. The whole angst thing is cool, but if that's all you've got, it's just boring. Everything I write, whether it's happy or sad, has a sense of humor to it.
I write about personal experiences. I write about things that have happened to me and the people around me, so you just sort of keep this antenna up and on the lookout for things to say.
Definitely, there is a sense in my writing that people now know me in a personal way. And to an extent, that's true because I write about very personal things, and I use the personal often to contextualize some of these sociopolitical issues that we're dealing with. And to an extent, they're right. They know something about me.
I don't mind being labeled as a political songwriter. I've chosen to do that. What really annoys me is being dismissed as a political songwriter. That really pains me, because life isn't all about love; it's not all about politics, either. It's a beautiful mixture of events that absolutely baffle you, and you think, "Why can't I do something about that?", whether those events are in your bedroom, or out there in the wide world. In our daily lives we engage with them at different times, and I'm trying to write about the whole human experience, or my perspective on it anyway.
I consider myself a songwriter before anything else. The fact that I have been able to write both of my records and establishing myself as a songwriter is super-important to me. Some people have that gift, where they can take on anything and make people believe it. I like to do a song from personal experience.
There's certain things as a songwriter that I don't really care to write about, and there are certain things I won't sing about anymore. There are just so many things that I probably thought was OK for me, or have been in the past, that I would never want my son to think was OK.
Most of my songs are inspired by both falling in love and heartache. And it was a turning point for me as a singer and songwriter as it dawned on me that I wasn't being honest enough about what I truly feel.
The cool thing about being a songwriter, or a writer, I guess, in general, you can take on a lot of different things, experience a lot of different things, just by writing about them.
I was fortunate enough to write about things I really love, and love can be very analytic.
I definitely use life experiences. For me, it's extremely hard to write about something I don't know anything about. If I've never been angry, then I can't write about being angry. We're human beings so we all have emotions. To just have that knowledge, it definitely helps me out as a singer songwriter.
I never learned to be a writer. I never took screenwriting courses. I never read anyone's scripts. As a writer, my only guiding principle has been to write about things that scare me, write about things that make me feel vulnerable, write about things that will expose my deepest fears, so that's how I write.
The song writing is different because with this stuff, I write it on my own and with Hot Water, we're more of a collective and I love both sides of that. Honestly, it's two different animals but I love and respect them both and feel really honored to be blessed with people who care about it and come out and support both sides of it.
I love that my fans are cool with me being lovey-dovey about my wife rather than pretending that I'm single and trying to act all sexy onstage.
I love, love writing about Los Angeles. I love exploring every part of it. And I find, rather than a burden, it's actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the writing process for me. I love everything about L.A. Okay, not the traffic. But I love the way it looks. I love the geography. I love the diversity.
I think I have a vested interest in thinking that the lyrics are important, but I think for us it's important that we all write things that mean something to us, and I think we're not really in the business of writing la-la-love-you chart pop songs. It needs to have a personal pulling in the gut for me, to want to write anything about it.
I love challenging myself, doing different things and exploring different areas that I haven't been to or gone to before. That's what I love about acting, and that's what I love about film.
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