I don't even think of myself as a quote, unquote star - that's really douchey. I think of myself as just like . . . a dance commander. You have to have dance parties all day and night, and you always have to be excited about having a dance party. You have to have a dance party in Milan one day, and then wake up and have a dance party at, like, four in the morning on national television in L.A. the next day. The hours are insane.
Dance music has evolved very much. From DJs playing at the Olympics, to playing at the Super Bowl, working with Cirque Du Soleil and even getting recognized at the Grammys with awards, dance music is growing in a big way.
Sometimes I'll lock myself in a room and dance. I'll turn music on as loud as possible and just get weird!
I feel like it's probably very out of character for Anthony to break into song. I feel like he might play the flute or something, like a really weird European cinema moment where it gets really odd and he serenades his love in music. You never know with Bridgerton.'
Some cultures don't have a separate word for music and dance. To my knowledge, this notion of listening to music without dancing is a Western creation. I can't think of any artist that I love that doesn't inspire movement in some form or another. I guess Tangerine Dream or early Vangelis or something like that, you're not really going to dance. But on the whole, I feel like dancing and music are so naturally intertwined. I feel like subconsciously, that's the goal whenever I'm working on music. It's kind of the defining thing: Does it got some funk to it, basically?
I'm definitely a fan of dance music. I guess we really call it 'dance' music because music seems to have become very functional. For years, people were trying to be everything. Now, musicians are becoming very specific.
When I started Fool's Gold and producing consistent records that were like electro beats with rapping on it that was experimental and weird. I made a mixtape called Dirty South Dance where I put rap vocals over dance music. That was literally an experiment. Now all these rappers are rapping on dance music. This is something I've been trying to build for a while.
Sometimes I get frustrated in traffic. I typically start going deep with my cab driver and Twitter feed - simultaneously - to take my mind off the gridlock. I enjoy live-tweeting my cab rides.
I keep mementos from everything I've done. I've got my cab driver's license from 'Happiness.' I've got a pair of glasses and a belt buckle from playing John Lennon. I've got a pair of sunglasses from playing Andy Warhol... It's all in a box in the garage.
With all the movies and stuff that we do, it always does feel like this is our home base when Nat and I are playing music. Because we do acting, and that's so fun, and we do it, and we're really passionate for it, but when I'm playing music with Nat - I don't know how to really explain it - it just feels right.
What is very exciting with children is they like to play, and they don't care so much about the meanings [of things], and they are just excited to have weird scenes to do or weird things to do, like playing deaf, or playing sick, or swimming in the water.
I have physical problems with listening to reggae. It's weird, I don't know why. It doesn't fit the way my heart pounds, and I feel very bad when I hear it. I have a neighbor--she's a waitress who comes home every night at four in the morning and she plays reggae very loud. I hate that. I can't sleep and I can't wake up either to that music.
When I'm representing my music live I think of it very much in a rock band sense. When I first started doing festivals in the 90s there really weren't other DJs playing the stages I was playing. So I felt I was being afforded an opportunity to kind of make a statement about what DJ music can be live. In the 90s, if you were a DJ you were in the dance tent, and you were playing house music and techno music. There was no such thing as a DJ - a solo DJ - on a stage, after a rock band and before another rock band: that just didn't happen.
I like playing sport, and I like doing physical stuff. I like hiking and I like climbing and I like playing sport. I do a lot. But I don't like the term 'exercising.' I feel like with sport, you're playing games. But with exercise, you're literally just trying to stop yourself from dying too young. It's weird.
You put music in categories because you need to define a sound, but when you don't play it on your so-called radio stations that claim to be R&B or jazz or whatever... All music is dance music. But when people think of dance music, they think of techno or just house. Anything you can dance to is dance music. I don't care if it's classical, funk, salsa, reggae, calypso; it's all dance music.
Music is great; it all depends on what mood you're in, what you want to listen to. If it's party time, you listen to, you know, party music, if you want to dance with somebody. But then again, if it's a slow dance, you need something slow.