A Quote by Nicolas Winding Refn

I don't do drugs, and so music very much gets me going. When I do something, I think, "If it was a piece of music, what would it be?" — © Nicolas Winding Refn
I don't do drugs, and so music very much gets me going. When I do something, I think, "If it was a piece of music, what would it be?"
When we work on a piece of music, we'll often read the biographies of the composer and learn about what was going on historically and artistically. But I believe that the connection to a piece of music is something much more personal and mysterious than all of these bits of information.
I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.
The magic that you find in surf music, I think, is really timeless. You know, when I was very young, I was in a surf band. Surf music is an instrumental music that still means a lot to me, not in an nostalgic way, but as something that really gets to the heart of the guitar itself.
After 10 years, I have been touring for 20, playing basically the same type of music, a four-piece or three-piece type of music with loud, crashing drums and screaming vocals. It gets to the point where you're looking for something new, and you don't want to do something that's way too left-field, for fear that it might seem contrived.
I think that the whole point of music is that there shouldn't be rules. There is no right or wrong. And the fact that I may not like that piece of music and you may... The validation is in the fact that somebody gets something from it.
Writing songs, that's what gets me going. Not the drugs or the sex or the rock'n'roll behaviour, it's the music.
I think that music is a very difficult art form in which to be avant-garde. When we sit down to listen to a piece of music, I think our implicit hope is that we're going to find it beautiful, or at least emotional, on some level.
Being from a background of dance music and what you might call club music or electronic music, I think something that gets neglected in that scene is personal vulnerability.
Dancing and music get into our bodies and it gets into our minds and it gets into our souls and we can be connected to something else. Music connects us all to each other, and I think that's just magical and beautiful, and I need that in my life. Heartbreak is the pain of separation. To me, the cure that music offers and that dancing offers is complete integration.
For me, writing music is a way of processing the world. It's not a concrete thing, as in, "This piece is about giraffes." It's much more of an emotional sort of thing. I want people to find something out about themselves through my music, something that was inaccessible before, something that they were suppressing, something that they couldn't really confront.
Music to me was never something that I could listen to while reading a book. Especially when I was studying music, if I was going to listen to music, I was going to put on the headphones or crank the stereo, and by God, I was going to sit there and just listen to music. I wasn't going to talk on the phone and multitask, which I can't do anyway.
I'm very easily distracted unless I have music on. Listening to music while I brainstorm makes me think of scenes that would fit the mood of the music I'm playing.
My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music from different countries like India and China. I think that would be a shame not to take advantage and do something... not unique, because I don't have this pretension.
If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.
Music is my life. Music runs through my veins. Music inspires me. Music is a part of me. Music is all around us. Music soothes me. Music gives me hope when I lose faith. Music comforts me. Music is my refuge.
I didn't know if it would be a successful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter...I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along...I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't...The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
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