Flying Lotus Quotes

I've never wanted to name an album from a song title if I could avoid it because I like it to be a body of work.

However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

I need a big picture. I can't just do a collection of songs; that doesn't work for me.

It's really important to me that the songs not only stand out individually but work as a full body of work, too.

I always want to put out an album when I know what it's going to be about. I don't want to throw in all these random songs and say, 'Okay, that's an album.'

And if somebody's going to produce me, they should be producing my sound for me. And that's something I have to come up with myself.

I believe artists are too focused on the younger crowd. Why would you want to focus on them? Let them do what they do. You continue to do what you do.

I've never done a video where I feel like the images have anything to do with my song, except in the most vague way possible, because I feel like the song is its own complete thing. But ideally, a song is a complete sphere like the Earth, where if you were an alien with a huge, huge finger, you could stick your finger into the middle of the ocean and make an impression on it. It’s not an impregnable sphere, but it is a sphere.

The key is what is within the artist. The artist can only paint what she or he is about.

When I was on the big labels, I never calculated what would make me sell more records. I just did what I did -no different than when I wrote songs for myself in high-school.

I'm not one of these guys to do my solo stuff one night and Black Sabbath the next. I can't do that, you know. It's too much to handle.

I want you to adore the Universe, to be easily delighted, but to be prompt as well with impatience with those artists who offend your own deep notions of what the Universe is or should be. ‘This above all ...’

An architect doesn't go off with a shovel and dig his foundation and lay every brick. He's still an artist.

It's easy to record songs. Anyone can make a track on garage band. I've been on the search to find that incredibly authentic place of sound and intention that only I can bring. Everyone has their own expression. I'm still on that quest and I hope to always be.

I don't ever try to anticipate my audience. I just write the songs I want to write, and hope people like 'em.

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

At first, one sees the person who is modelling; but little by little, all of the possible sculptures that could be made come between artist and model.

The artist is the compass which, through the raging of the storm, points steadily to the north.

Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter. ... I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

An artist must be ruthlessly selfish.

The reason I don't play any of the old songs is because I really honor my old band, and I think that those songs are best served within the context of that band.

A lot of artists write about the same things their whole career.

The hallmark of an artist is generosity.

There were the usual types of things that happen, in a production, like logistical bullshit, and this and that and the other. That's the sort of stuff that happened. But I never felt, in a creative sense, that we were ever veering into a place that I hadn't signed on for.