A Quote by Utada Hikaru
Since I was doing all of it myself, I had to decide where I wanted to go with the songs, how to proceed with the chords, if the sound was alright, and all that detail on my own.
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Well, at the very beginning of the Amboy Dukes, I was doing background but I never sang my own songs. I would sing them for the guys to show them how I wanted the songs to go, but I always had lead vocalists.
When I started off as a choreographer, I had to do songs, which I may have wanted to do differently, but directors had their own inputs to give. But now, I take liberty to decide my own dance steps as well.
By the time I was six or seven-years-old, I had learned several techniques of how to use my voice and was able to choose the sound I wanted to distinguish myself, so I started writing songs on the piano.
The other songs [of Billie Holiday] - "Body and Soul" is like the standard - I also wanted some songs that I knew I would sound good on, as a producer. It's been the same nine songs since I debuted it back in 2012.
In the past, I've written my songs and then asked friends if they could record the vocals. I didn't want to use my own voice, because other people have much better voices. I was hearing the music with a voice that I don't have. It was a case of pulling whatever resources I had to get the sound I wanted, but that doesn't take anything away from the authorship. They are songs written by me that sound the way I want them to sound. Whether it's my voice or someone else's doesn't make a difference to the music.
I write most of my songs to beats. I play around on guitar, but not enough to where I can compose my own stuff or play solos. I can accompany myself 'cause most songs are, like, four chords.
I chose the songs for the music more than for the lyrical content and it wasn't until the end of the recording and when we were trying to decide running order that I realized how sad a lot of the songs could sound.
I've never tried to be accepted. When everyone is doing one thing, I've always had the instinct to go the other way. I don't understand how an individual with their own mind, their own values, and their own beliefs can be so willing to just follow what everybody else is doing. How can you make history doing what everybody else is doing?
By adding open strings to even the simplest chords, you can create voicings that sound sophisticated, but are really easy (and fun) to play. They're practical, not intimidating, and most certainly don't sound like 'jazz chords.'
I made songs really for myself - I didn't ever expect to put it out there and make this a record for mass consumption, this was really just a way for me to get out of my own situation and reclaim that part of myself - so when making the songs, I wanted a testament to what I'd gone through, I wanted a snapshot of those moments.
When I was 12 or 13, my dad taught me a couple of different chords, and once I learned chords, I never learned to read music, but I learned tablature, like a lot of kids do, and I learned songs that had the chords I knew. It took me a long time to understand the upstroke of picking and strumming, but once I did, it all fell into place.
I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound. But I can't find myself in a situation where our band Swans is doing typical chord progressions - it just seems cliché to me. Even changing chords sounds like a cliché sometimes, though it happens occasionally in our music. But you find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.
A lot of times, that's hard to capture: what you sound like in person versus what you sound like on record. If I had total control, I would do a lot of the old songs - not only my songs but Sam Cooke songs, Luther Vandross, melody songs. That's what I would really do if I had an opportunity to do a record.
I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.
I wasn't popular in school, I was Mexican, I was all these inappropriate things. I started playing the ukulele and taking it to school, and I realized people liked listening to it. I would play it to comfort myself at home, and I'd play rhythm and blues songs that had four chords. That's how it started.
I have always known that it comes from deep within myself. I always knew what sound I wanted, and how I wanted to play. I knew everything, it just had to be developed.
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