I've always been a music fan. I played trumpet. When I was in 4th grade, we were getting demos from the music teacher about different instruments we could play, and I said I wanted to play the trumpet right away. It was easy: it just had three valves.
I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn't have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that - except I couldn't afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.
I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, 'What do you want to play?' I said the drums, and my mother said, 'No, you don't. You don't want to play the drums.' So I said, 'Maybe the trumpet would be cool.' And my mother said, 'I don't think so.' And then the clarinet was handed to me.
I want to make music. That means I prefer the Steinway piano.
I don't really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar.
My parents pushed me toward trombone because they didn't need another trumpet player.
I kinda always wanted to be a tenor player, but I'm a small guy, and tenor was just too big.
What happened on "As Cool As I Am" was, you know how in the '90s, "the personal is political, the political is personal"? That was a really big thing. Choices you made about how you recorded and what instruments you used and how much real versus how much synthetic. Those were choices that were seen as very political at the time.
I bought my first bass because I wanted to be in a Band, and heard that it was the easiest instrument to play. A friend told me that it was the sexiest instrument.
If you pick up a guitar and it says, 'take me, I'm yours,' then that's the one for you
Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
I don't use the harpsichord because it evokes a past time period: I use it because I like the sound.
As soon as I choose the timbre of an instrument, that dominates how I compose.
I would think, of all the saxophones, the baritone would be the most logical instrument if anybody was adding a voice to the symphony orchestra.
I'm not too picky about guitars. I love to collect them, mostly oddballs, but I'm not married to any brand or model. Whatever guitar has the best character for the song is the one I want to use, because if you've got a style, you're going to sound like yourself no matter what guitar you play.
Basically, I try to let the song dictate what guitar I use. If it's a really loud, crazy song, I'll pull out the cheapest, oldest guitar I own, one that feeds back easily. But most of the time, I just use whatever's around.
As a musician, your instrument is almost predetermined. I had played drums, piano, clarinet, but when I heard Wayne Shorter play the saxophone, I knew that sound is what I wanted.
I just started doing this one-man show, and I wanted to be able to score it, so I bought a guitar, and got a keyboard and got a harmonica. I remember when I started that I didn't understand why a harmonica had different letters on them.
I found it easy to produce. I'm not the musical guy. I can't read and play music like that, but put some drums and a sample in front of me and I can whip it up nice, and I'll work out some keys and find some interesting instruments to put under it.
I wish I played an instrument, but I could never decide which one, and I ended up playing nothing.
