MNEK Quotes

I wrote 'Criminal' in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

I'm so hard on myself that when I'm in the studio, I'll write 10 songs and only use one. So those nine songs that are left over, I always think, 'Where could these go? Who could they be for?'

When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now,' that never works. Every time that happens, I never write a hit song.

For Scary Movie 2, we had a due date and had to work fast. And though there's a lot of pressure, as artists, we just block it out. So really, the pressure comes from us. That's how the first movie happened. There was no outside pressure: we wanted to hit the audience hard.

That's how a lot of Tame Impala songs start out - as ideas for songs I could potentially give to someone else. I think of them with a different persona in mind; it's just a subconscious way of not being bound by what you think you are as an artist.

To create something new is both thrilling and excruciating at the same time. It's great to have all these choices in front of you, and to have the writers in the room so you know exactly what they meant. But the downside is you want so badly not to screw it up!

I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.

You can never tell when an artist really will take up someone's work and work with it happily.

I draw the line at letting people into my songwriting cave. To me, that's where the alchemy happens and where the mystery is.

I never have, but I would love to pick R. Kelly's brain.

I write by myself and then deliver the song. Everybody knows, 'Leave Ester alone when she's in her zone.' Give me a studio and the tracks, and I'll call you when the doctor is done.

I've never sat down and tried to write something for some occasion. You just write the tune and stay totally wide open to everything. It'll find the person or persons who are supposed to do it.

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.

Trying to force creativity is never good.

I don't know any other lifestyle. I get up in the morning and I really do feel that the world is my oyster, and I start that way, the same as I would if I were preparing to write a song: put a blank piece of paper up on the piano and you go for it.

The songs come along at their own pace when they are ready.

It takes a lot of selfish time to make music.

I always think I don't have any songs, I don't have anything I'm working on, and I get in the studio and realize there are 20 things I'm thinking about. It's just kind of second nature.

The idea of competition, particularly in a creative atmosphere, is always there. And, if you don't acknowledge that, you are doing yourself and the process a disservice.

We just wrote songs that seemed good to us. We wrote the album in like two weeks. We could have had more time, but we accomplished what we needed to in the two weeks.

I do a lot of co-writing with my producer RedOne, and then a lot on my own. I just like to be creative.

I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I've always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it's late.

If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.

I had my own musical ideas that Mick helped me with as well.