A Quote by Greg Mottola
Brian Eno records and music got me through. It made me feel like there were other people out there who had the same questions and fears and unhappiness. Particularly those kinds of artists who were writing songs about exactly those things.
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We were fortunate at that time we were working with Virgin, and with Flood, probably more well-known as Brian Eno's engineer now and U2's producer, etc. Even though we weren't working in a strictly popular music area, which was great, we were lucky enough to work with people who were on the cusp of those sort of things.
A lot of musicians have said things to me like, "Music saved my life". And "I'm standing on the shoulders of dozens of people that you've never heard of that were like angels for me that came out of the woodwork." And that's really the case for me. I had so many people that did those kinds of things for me.
Imagine if every airport would blast Brian Eno. I bet going through security wouldn't be as difficult. I can't imagine someone being aggressive with me with Brian Eno music pumping through the terminals at LAX.
Every one of those old songs like "What's My Age Again?" and "All the Small Things" is like a tattoo or a scrapbook or an old photograph. There are just songs that define certain moments in your life. Everyone has a song that got them through a bad breakup or they put on and it made them feel like they wanted to go out and kick the world's ass with their friends on a weekend. Those songs still feel like that to me.
Some people are better at seeing things through to a logical conclusion as far as copying things they like from other people's records; they understand what Brian Eno did and they just do it.
Growing up with music as a kid - I used to feel like artists were writing songs about me falling in love.
I am a big Brian Eno fan - the first few Brian Eno records are just absolute gibberish and he came up with a lot of lyrics by writing down loads and loads of random sentences and streams, and I find meaning in that music, even though he'd probably say it's absolute gibberish.
And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person.
I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.
All songs, all pieces of art, reflect the world that they were made in and the values of those artists and the hopes and aspirations of the people who listen to that music and who made that music.
Fighting is really, really rewarding. I truly enjoyed it. I got feelings from fighting that were bigger than those I had experienced in almost any other realm of my life. It made me feel awake in a way that I had never been awake. Those kinds of big emotions and big experiences may come with a heavy price tag.
When I made 'Feed tha Streets,' those were the only 17 songs I had made, period. There was no cutting songs out or adding other songs in.
Technology was changing just as we were getting started. You had these records by people like David Bowie and Talking Heads and Brian Eno that took production into a whole new direction. That really influenced us, and pushed us to find that early sound we had.
I used to write songs that mimicked other songs that I would hear as a kid, cos I was 12 years old when I was writing those, right. And you hear a radio so all I'd write about was [sings] "hey girl, look at you", you know what I mean. I think that even doing that made it easier for me to write non-personal songs because, from a kid, I never wrote personal songs, they were always like mimicking. And now I'm just trying to understand my writing and where it's coming from.
When I started out, I was definitely writing about experiences that I hadn't had yet. The songs were just based on my influences, songwriters that had written songs before me and that were more experienced and 20, 30 years older than me.
If I've influenced people, so be it, but I don't dwell on those kinds of things. I just put out my music. If I influence someone without knowing it, I'm happy about it. I try not to think about those things because it's not about me.
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