A Quote by Jay Kay
My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you've just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you're on your way.
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Somewhere around the fifth, sixth album, we got this little formula together where we knew how to record Too $hort songs. You need the bassline, a good drum pattern, call in the keyboard, the guitars - it's just a way we mixed it all together.
I got good at trying to throw a voice on a character from the very beginning as opposed to like reading it and sitting with it and mulling over it and stuff like that just try to read what it is and then try to put a funny voice to it like as soon as possible and stuff like that. Once you get laughs with your voice then you can start thinking about, you know the physical characteristics and how they might walk or if they stick out their buck teeth or if they wear an afro and stuff like that. I think like finding the voice of the character helps to like build the wardrobe and everything else.
I had this weird fetish for making the guitar sound like it wasn't a guitar to try and trick people into actually thinking it was a keyboard. I don't know why that was such an obsession, why I didn't just get a keyboard. I guess it was because I had no money.
There's so much to be said for making your guitar sound like a synthesizer and try to make your drummer sound like a drum machine.
In general, we like to play as a band - guitar, piano, and voice. We also tour with a bass player, a drummer, and somebody who plays keyboard and guitar. We try to play all of our parts and flesh it out to get a lush sound, while also keeping the energy of a three-piece punk act. We want to be the best of all possible worlds.
Piano is one of those instruments you don't have to be good at to sound good - you just have to know where to put three little fingers, which is really pretty easy to figure out.
I source images and ideas from different parts of my experiences, and sometimes they are things that are made-up, or just appear out of nowhere, like out of a dream or an image that I've seen in a book, or even the title of a book that I'm staring at on a shelf. It's a good way to write songs, just stare at a bookshelf!
And at the time, for one of the few times in my life I didn't have a band, I just had myself and the guitar, so I was going to have to do something with just my voice, just the guitar and just my songs that was going to move someone enough to give me a shot. So I wrote songs that were very lyrically alive and lyrically dense. And they were unique, but it really came out of the motivation to - or I understood it was - I was going to have to make my mark that way.
Guys, just remember, if you get lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you get out and buy a lot of stuff--it's gonna break. You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world. It has air conditioning. It's got a pool. Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out. Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world. Nobody is smiling, and I'll tell you why. Something broke that morning. The generator's out; the microwave oven doesn't work . . . Things just don't mean happiness.
Ourchestra: So you haven't got a drum, just beat your belly. So I haven't got a horn-I'll play my nose. So we haven't any cymbals- We'll just slap our hands together, And though there may be orchestras That sound a little better With their fancy shiny instruments That cost an awful lot- Hey, we're making music twice as good By playing what we've got!
I was working with D'Mile - he's amazing! And I don't know, it was like that guitar riff was so crazy to me, and so I think I was frustrated about something that happened earlier and I feel like I'm just a good guy, I don't cut people off, I don't really call people out when they do stuff that they should be called out on, and I'm just always the one being the bigger person. So, that day "Gangster" just came out. That's just how I feel in that day to day life.
I usually find myself hiking in a place that not a lot of people go hiking, just trying to find some solitude. I like being out in the middle of nowhere. Not always, but it's a good place to go to just reflect and think, and it's something I really enjoy.
I was feeling pretty good out there in the middle when I went in, but it was one of those things - sometimes you get a really good ball. If it gets you out you just have to forget about it and make sure you do the hard work out there next time you get in.
My mom used to be concerned 'cause I would never go outside. And when I'd go outside, I'd have friends, but I just was always in the house listening to music, practicing DJing all the time. Then my uncle got a keyboard, drum machine, so I'd just be in the house at 12, 13, just, like, messing up his presets. And my mom was like, 'My son is strange.'
I feel like a lot of the stuff coming out right now just feels really inauthentic to me. But apparently, people don't seem to see through it. And this makes me sound bitter, but it's just my perspective. I'm not bitter. I just feel like there's a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of any sort of integrity. It just doesn't feel like it's coming from the heart, basically. It just feels like it's being produced because people know it's a formula that will work, or it's easily digestible and fun to look at.
There's two or three kids out there trying to make good music, and the rest of them sound like it's been strained through some kind of white toast or something. It all sounds just too neat and perfect, with no surprise to it at all. No story, no nothing. It's like building cars, like an assembly line. It doesn't sound like anything that came from a guitar.
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