My advice to young people wanting to make music and to be in this industry is to really spend your time making music. Make so much music you have no friends. Make music. Figure out what it is you love, and... because if you're making cool art, then everything else will fall into line.
You're not just making music for your personal use no more, just making music for your homies around you; you're making music for people around the world. Kids in Alaska - like, you're making music for everybody. When I make music, I just think on a larger scale.
When you start making music, you start making music at a young age, and for me, I just thought, like, 'Ahh, once you make it, all your problems will be solved, and everything will be fine.'
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.
I'd been making music that was intended to be like painting, in the sense that it's environmental, without the customary narrative and episodic quality that music normally has. I called this 'ambient music.' But at the same time I was trying to make visual art become more like music, in that it changed the way that music changes.
There are just so many people making music out there. I've always promoted the idea that everybody needs to make music. I think the more music there is in the world, the better, but it does make it highly competitive.
My goal is really to continue to make music. I really don't make music to have platinum records and all that kind of stuff. I've been there. I do it because I love music, and I love uplifting people through my music. That's my real goal.
Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music "for" their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.
I take photos, I used to make films, I journal incessantly, and I really value the documentation of life. Because it's almost like you are making something special by wanting to make it exist in an object - on paper or even just in the computer - making these recordings, making this music.
Two things - one is obvious: always keep making. The second thing, with regard to music videos specifically - the music video industry can be a place that takes advantage of young freelancers and filmmakers. Make sure you're making stuff that you're proud of and you can get behind.
It's satisfying and gratifying to make your own music, but I personally don't get the same enjoyment out of the music that I make as I do from somebody else's music that I like.
The music that I make isn't really like any of the music that I listen to. I think I listen to cool music, but I know that I don't make cool music - so it's kind of funny!
Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere.
I love making music. I feel like people often get into that 'you should only make music for yourself' kind of place, where they say things like, "I don't write for other people, I write for myself," and I feel like that misses the mark so much because music, especially pop music, is so much more than yourself.
I believe that when you really make the best music you can make from your heart, it will transcend all of those stereotypes, color issues, everything, because music is really made for human beings.
If you only have the mind of, "We have to sell this music and I have to make money on this music," then it's not really about the music anymore; it's about the money. I'm not saying I don't want to make money, but I'm thinking a little more long-term than just making a buck today.
People get caught up in making music with a trend. You're time stamping your music and I'm guilty of it to. But, I want to make music where five, ten years from now it brought back a memory or brought an emotion out of them they want to feel.