Mark Hoppus Quotes

I really enjoy helping a band form their sounds and ideas from initial spark to completed album. Being a producer is different in that, at the end of the day, it is not my art. It's THEIR art, THEIR ideas, THEIR message.

I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.

Usually, when you go in to make a record, you have 30 songs, and you record 30 of them, and 12 of them make it to the record.

My goal has always been to make classic records, classic albums. Sometimes the recording process and the era it was recorded in means the production leans in a particular way, but to me they are all part of the same process.

Fleetwood Mac always take a long time to make a record - you know what.

You get the beats. You write to them. You go in the studio and lay it down. Hopefully, a song comes out sounding good. If it comes out sounding good, you put it to the side with the rest of the other good ones, and you try to decide which ones you're gonna use on the album.

What excites me is the idea of doing a record that's pretty clean and focused on songs. I've rushed a lot with previous albums and there's not a rush now - it's not a race.

It's a different thing when you go into a studio and you record with the intent of going somewhere and you're marketing yourself for that direction.

Every project is different. When I'm working on my albums, I've worked with different producers and they've all had different personalities. The recording studio sets the vibe, and that changes as well.

You go in and record and sing them some and you go back in and rerecord and sing them some more. That's kind of how I did this album [The Art of Elegance].

Well, we didn't have our original drummer on our last record. And most of that album was not played as a band in the studio. It was mostly the world of computers and overdubs. There was very few things played live or worked out as a band.

We were never happy with the way cello was recorded, and we wanted to experiment in the studio to make the cello rock as much as possible. On the second album, we had great help from Bob Ezrin, who helped us develop our sound even more.

But when I record my next studio album, of course I'll do the lead vocals.

I don't ever land on an album title until I know exactly what's going on the record, because you never know until it's all said and done.

When I made Blue Moon Swamp, there was a lot of trial and error; I was trying to find people who would be simpatico with my style, and with what I had in mind for the album.

I don't like to produce albums. I hate producing albums, as a matter of fact, because I'm an obsessed mixer and I can't leave it alone.

Our albums just tend to be collections of songs really, because we all write in the group, all four of us.

Every record has been very different, so I can't really compare them. The first record was good. I originally recorded about half the songs on that one in 2003 or something, and then I went back a few years later and re-recorded them and added some other songs.

On Eye of the Zombie, I had so-called studio musicians.

The first nine albums there was never a Synthesiser, never any Orchestra. There was never any other player except us on the albums.

All my writing, I always do it in the studio, 'cause everything sounds good. The piano's there, the keyboards; if you want to put strings on something... And everything sounds good when it's in the cans; it sounds killer.

Back in 1985, I was working on my third solo album when the band came to me and asked me to produce the next Fleetwood Mac project. At that point, I put aside my solo work - which was half finished - and committed myself for the next seventeen months to producing 'Tango in the Night.'

I think it's all about making records when you're inspired to make them.

You can see how different artists work, from writing to recording, just from being in the studio environment with them.

I definitely like making music in the studio, but I never had it out to make a CD specifically.