A Quote by Jim James

I really have a lot of respect for music, the art form of music. It's my whole life. I don't care about any of that other stuff. And I have always felt that way. I'll build a career on my own merits, my own hard work and nothing else.
I'm a huge fan of a lot of different genres of music, and I really felt like somehow I had been pigeonholed a little bit - maybe of my own doing - and in a way where I felt like I was sort of falsely defined. What my music was being called wasn't really the music I was always listening to.
I've lived in N.Y. and L.A. for many years, but I still gravitate to New Orleans - it's so unique and so European. There's nothing else like it in the country. It has its own music, its own food, its own style and its own way of life.
I'm always writing my own music, recording my own music, even if I am 9/10 of the time recording stuff for other people. I'm still working on my own creative endeavors.
I was born first to music. But I went into acting because my father knew so much about music he intimidated me. So, I picked an art form, he knew nothing about. So I could be my own man.
Our whole mission is about breaking the rules. Cibo Matto doesn't fit into any one genre and when people ask about what kind of genre is it, it's hard to say. We try to do a lot of stuff. People like to categorize, basically. So we always have trouble giving an answer. Pop music has a lot of different elements of music. Even polka too.
Sure there are people who do everything "I do my own beats, my own lyrics, my own mixing, my own mastering, my own art, my own booking, my own managing, my own merch" it's like... ya that sucks, it can't be very good for you, and might be why you aren't getting ahead because you really need to focus on the music where others should be focusing on those other aspects.
I encourage film students who are interested in cinematography to study sculpture, paintings, music, writing and other arts. Filmmaking consists of all the arts combined. Students are always asking me for advice, and I tell them that they have to be enthusiastic, because it's hard work. The only way to enjoy it is to be totally immersed. If you don't get involved on that level, it could be a very miserable job. I only have one regret about my career: I'm sorry that we are not making silent movies any more. That is the purest art form I can imagine.
Well, one is inspired by the whole of life, one's own and somebody else's. You know how sometimes you hear great music, and music is completely untranslatable into words, into any words. A certain tension that is born when one listens to music could aid you in expressing something absolutely different.
Some people who make music are instantly very savvy about how they can get their music to communicate in a larger way. For me, the music was always first, and I put a lot of time and effort and thought into making the recordings. But everything else around it, all the things that were necessary to have a career in pop music, I was completely ill equipped to handle.
Music has been so healing in my life, so the fact that my music could be that for someone else is the best gift of my whole career. People have told me that they got married to my music, divorced to my music, and played my music while they were having their baby.
In so many areas, when you think about it, you never really see an actor cross over to music. It always music to acting and it's receivable because when music gives a form of entertainment of art to where it's very personable, it's a passion, it's an intimate type of art to when you hear it, it's them.
When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.
To me, art and music inform each other continually, and when I was making more music there was an overall aesthetic that was shared by both mediums. Now I always listen to music when I work, so when I am working a lot, that is when I start searching out new music and finding new things to get excited about.
I have a great amount of respect for what a manicurist does - now, when I go and get my own nails done at a nail salon, I have a lot of respect for what they're doing. Especially any kind of intricate work that they're doing is... it's a real art form.
Music, for me, is the most sacred of the arts. I say that because music communicates in a way that no other art form can. All great art has a spirit that we recognize and appreciate, but music goes directly to your heart.
Conception of a film starts with the music. Always. I hear the movie before I can ever write it. I would say that 80% of the time, that's the successful stuff. It's the other stuff I have to work for to get right, and sometimes it doesn't work out, but the music is always the beginning. So I'm still a music journalist.
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