A Quote by Michael Cera

Normally what I do is I'll record something that I really like which will be part of a song or an idea. I kind of just record things and then I'm done with them. It takes discipline to actually carve out a song.
I never want to record something that I'm not proud of just because I think it might be a big hit. There's no positive about that because if you record a song you hate and it's a big hit, then you're singing a song every night that you hate. And if you record a song that you hate and it isn't a hit, then you sold out for no reason.
Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.
I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things. I write random things down... Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them, and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time.
The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.
I've played death metal, punk rock, hardcore, funk... I've done it all. And all there really is music and at the end of the day, anybody who has a record and puts out a record that's basically the same song 13 times over on one record; to me they're just cheating the fans.
I just feel like it's easier to co-write sometimes, especially if you have chemistry with somebody. It kind of takes all the pressure off of you. But, you know, I started writing songs by myself. I didn't really have a co-writer, besides my dad. When I see a record and it has a song on it that someone wrote [alone], I just really believe in them as a writer. I feel like it's a window into them, more than it is if you write a song with someone else.
I played a couple of ideas and then had this unusual texture underneath which was like this little granulated kind of pipe organ almost like a scratchy record which he started [inaudible] brilliantly. "Oh I love that song." And when things go fine, it's good. So he started loving that song and that song was used quite a lot in the movie which is very granulated stuff on the guitar.
When I was growing up, you would put on a KISS record or a UFO or Aerosmith record and listen to it from the first song through the last song. It's been so long since a band has put out a record like that.
I grew up listening to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and every record those bands put out was very unique in its own right. I have that mentality. too: if a song sounds like something I've already done, then I'll throw it out, because I want each record to be a progression.
I like to record something pretty much as soon as I have an idea for a song, but I'm on so many buses, I have to record on my mobile.
Producing just one video is a long process. First, you decide your song, then you have to figure out the arrangement of the song; will you play it on the guitar? Will you make it a music video? Once you figure that out, you record it and then edit it, which can take two to five days to finish.
Every song that I record, I love, it's like my new favorite. But one that really stands out to me is a song I debuted on tour with Trey Songz called "Angel". It's a really acoustic sounding and it's a really big song.
When I record, it feels like I'm in a bubble. There's nothing else in my head right then. It's just that song, and I'm trying to really sound like what the song is about.
When I put out a record I don't really like to do covers as much, but I don't mind playing them. I do them mostly for my friends. When a friend's like, 'Man I really like that song,' I go 'hahaha' and I go home and I record it.
I don't want to just go out and do song to song to song. I like to create things before the song actually kicks in, little things you do to excite the crowd.
You're not going to hit it every single time, and that's why, when I record an album, I do probably close to 50 songs. Each song I record has to get better. If it's not better than the last song that I made, it'll usually linger for a couple of months, and then it'll be put on the backburner, and then there'll be another song that I do, and then it often doesn't make it on the album.
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