Yolandi Visser Quotes

For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.

I sit down and draw from my lyric book. I sit down and start looking through it and see if there is anything that strikes me that I've written.

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.

A lot of times, a bunch of songs have to be written to get to the next really good one.

My best capacity is to edit. If anything, I am a specialist at editing: my usual approach is to record a song very long. In the beginning just jam, jam on and on. Then break the song and play with it.

I can make a record when I think I have a good one.

I'm not the type of person who makes a lot of songs in a day just to see which one is the best.

There were numerous times where, at the end of a week of working on a song, there was a part of it that we still weren't feeling, so we'd scrap the whole thing and start from scratch the next week.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

To be honest, making albums is really never easy. It's always a bit excruciating because there's always this fight to make it great, and then you hit these stumbling blocks along the way.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

Writing a simple melody can take weeks to get it right where I want it, but I do quite enjoy it.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

I write a lot of rhymes, but I don't really end up using them a lot of times, and I end up just freestyling. I like to write music, though, more than I like to freestyle, to be honest.

You can either make it come around or you can't. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.

To be honest, I rewrote 'Wicked Nights' a number of times. I just wasn't happy with the end result.

I'll have the music, and then I'll just turn the microphone on, press Play and Record and sing. And whatever comes out ends up being the melody.

All the signs were right. And when I mean all the sings were right, the only signs that we care about when we start a project of making a record is, do we have the songs - it's that simple.

'Are 'Friends' Electric?' was two songs: the verse part and the talking part. Two different songs I couldn't finish. One day I was playing the main verse part of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and after a few minutes I got frustrated, as normal, then started to play the other song, and realized they went together.

Every single note on this album is there for a reason.

I work hard at that, but the fact that there are a lot of good songs means there are also a lot of really bad songs I've written that you never hear.

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

It's never easy to write a song. It's the most difficult thing I do.

I jump into the process, and the record begins to gel at some point. Then I begin to get a picture of where I'm going. But it's not always something I know on the front-end.