A Quote by Kaskade
People book me because of the songs I write, not because of the sets that I play, per se... I'm sure I'm going to be moving to a laptop really soon, but I was one of the last guys to let the vinyl go. I was crying. In my room, I still have thousands of records. I still pull them out and play them all the time.
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Vinyl is so outdated nowadays. I can make a track in my hotel room today, and play it for the crowd tomorrow. That never happens with vinyl. I played a lot of acetates at the end of my vinyl period - I used to make tracks and get them pressed in four or five days - but the quality was always so bad and they would skip all the time. The vinyl days for me are over. I still buy vinyl, but only albums, and just to play. For DJing, vinyl is a nightmare.
I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.
I played a lot of acetates at the end of my vinyl period - I used to make tracks and get them pressed in four or five days - but the quality was always so bad and they would skip all the time. The vinyl days for me are over. I still buy vinyl, but only albums, and just to play. For DJing, vinyl is a nightmare.
If I completely understood what was going on and I understood these songs, they wouldn't make sense to play live anymore. They're still enigmatic for me. I'm still searching in the songs as they are. That's what's actually been the most fun about playing and touring for me is that there's still a lot of caverns in the songs where you can go and hide out different nights.
I believe in doing vinyl. As long as vinyl can still be made into a high-quality standard, I'm going to still make all my records as a side A and a side B because that's how I grew up listening to music.
I'm talking about the '60s really. People go interview these guys and ask them, "Do you still think music can change the world?" I mean, go talk to Graham Nash about that. What's he going to tell you? Ask David Crosby. These guys are still out there. They're playing their hits at Staples Center and those are really valuable songs. I'm talking about a couple of the guys who got knee-deep into really believing music had a great service beyond radio. I believe it did. And I think a lot of those songs are great.
It's just insane because, as a longtime WWE fan, I still have all of my action figures in storage. Now to have my own, and to see my nephews play with them, to see kids tweet me pictures with them, and to see people are actually going out of their way searching all of these stores trying to find them, it's really cool and humbling.
With DJing, there's still an art to it - you get two DJs and give them songs to play, one can play it better. There is a way, and it's not just about the songs you're playing, it's about how you mix, the timing, when you cut out and in. I love it, and I love feeling the excitement of the crowd - you go on this journey with them for an hour or so.
That's why you put out records: hoping that people will connect with them. I mean, I play music for myself, for sure, and I would still play music even if people didn't like it. But it means a lot when it connects to people and they enjoy it. But it's funny: you get criticism as much as you get praise. It kind of evens out after awhile.
Hearing your voice and your instrument kind of breathe in the room, it affects the way you perform the songs. For instance, if you have that reverb, you can give the songs a little more space. You can play them a little slower or you can play less of the guitar part and just let it open up, which I really love. It's so nice to play a listening room, because the audience feels a certain way too.
I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that's what I got back to.
Well, you know, when you're putting together a show, you've got to be careful not to load it up with the new stuff. We have to play the songs that people want to hear, too. People may come thinking, "Oh, I've just got to hear this song." Or maybe they'll write me a letter saying a certain song is really meaningful to them, so we'll be sure to play those songs.
I think I'm better at producing than I am at being a songwriter, but it doesn't change the fact that I still have a desire to play and write songs. I've never wanted to be a career musician. But I still love to play and write. It's a big part of who I am. Songwriting is not particularly easy for me. I think it would be easy for me if I didn't have such high restrictions and feelings about what I want my music to be. I'm not precious at all when it comes to producing music and I can bring that to an artist and let them expand their horizons.
But we go out as a band because we enjoy each others company, first of all. And its the payoff for me, to go out and play my art and still play guitar, which is my life.
There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.
Now I'm able to play on the main stage and play my own tracks and the crowd likes them. I feel like a lot the other DJs play a lot of the same songs, and not to knock them, but it's important to me to go up there and sort of sneak in a bunch of stuff the other guys aren't playing.
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