Jon Landau Quotes

Playing guitar is not a beauty contest.

I made many studio albums and I think the danger of studio recording is that if you do not watch out, you come out with a perfectly sterile performance.

I like performing live more than anything. I get a little bit afraid in the studio.

Music should come from the heart. It should happen. That should be automatic, and if you labour on creating music, it will not have soul.

I think there's an attitude these days that you can go straight from a studio to the stage, and it isn't really like that. But playing live was the most important thing for me at the start because whenever I recorded something, it didn't sound right; I didn't like how my voice sounded. It was just raw.

Whether I'm making my own record, or playing a guitar part, I want what I do to have an impact.

People like Nick Cave - that ridiculous, over-the-top doom, taking it to extremes - I find it uplifting because it's like someone else is feeling what you're feeling and putting it into their music. Someone expressing extreme joy is just as valuable; it's just the fact that they're expressing their soul through music.

Any musical output is emotional.

Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you're working with; otherwise, you're not gonna come out with something that's really you.

All of the good things that surround art - you have to embrace the idea that it could be a complete disaster. I think that's what gives it its artistic sparkle is that it really could crash and burn at any moment because you're going out on a limb and being very personal.

Music was sort of my thing at first.

I'm a rock drummer. I couldn't sit down and pretend to be a jazz drummer.

We want to be able to make our own songs and write our own arrangements. We want to incorporate the live sound so we can be free onstage and in the studio recording. That way we can come up with original and creative stuff.

I don't feel like I'm very good at making music.

If I don't relate to a song, I won't sing it. The thing is that if I wrote it, I'm always going to relate to it.

We listen to so many different types of music, so it's easy for us to play a different genre or style and it be true to what we do.

I was never a fan of open tunings, because some people will do that and fumble around. But that's not my jam.

If I'm proud of one thing in my playing, it's being able to slow it down and focus on the melody.

Everyone's music is made of their own life experiences.

I wanted to lift the aspects of the lyrics and imagery that I found sincerely powerful and touching, plus the amazing musical extremities, and make my own thing. That's what making music has always been for me. Synthesizing a nonexistent kind of music that I wish existed because I wanted to listen to it.

Music has a lot in com­mon with math­e­mat­ics. But in music, two and two need not make four: they add up to what­ever you wish.

The fact is that all the recording science and technology in the world is no substitute for a good song or for real feeling. Music is about feeling and if there isn't any genuine feeling, if the song isn't about anything that anyone gives a damn about, there's nothing you can do. All the technique that exists won't make it any good; it'll just make it technological. All the production values you add won't do anything except make it glossy.

I love to musicalize things. You do employ a whole level of gravity. You use the emotional heft of music.

I never wanted to grow a thicker skin; I felt a real sense of pride in my thin skin, and in a weird way, I still do, because it's my thin skin that allows me to empathize with other people. It's the thing that allows me to create vulnerable art. It's the thing that allows me to create other feelings and make songs that actually grab people and touch people. I feel like I've spent my life fighting that thicker skin because I don't want to become an embittered asshole.

There might be two or three songs I'm trying out. I've been singing these songs (on the new album) in the studio, but I haven't really done them live. It's intimate to sing them in a studio. Now, I've got to be on a stage and be in front of a lot of people.