It's easy to get people to sing along to cover songs, but when it's your song, it's the coolest.
I was in a choir as a kid. It was from those early days that my outlook on harmonies and arrangements were nurtured. I always took that with me, even on the earliest Bad Religion record, which strangely was only about six years after that.
I think the Beatles is one band that, if I'm working on a song arrangement or if I have some idea for a song, and there's a little bit of a Beatles quality to it, I never avoid that. I always will steer into it.
I think an album is all about the songs you've worked on and the journey it's taken to get there.
I have no such ambition of becoming an actor. I want to grow as a musician, singer and songwriter.
Lyrics over some nice beats - that's what the people want from us.
I pull a lot of the stuff that I play off the rhythm tracks - and Keith Richards has been one of the main contributors to my inspirational playing.
So the Madonna thing, I wrote a song with Diplo, she liked it, tweaked it and then made it her own and it became 'Hold Tight.'
I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background.
Honestly, a lot of pop records have beatboxing. Timbaland beatboxes on his tracks. Justin Timberlake beatboxes.
I became a professional musician and played all kinds of music. I played bluegrass, I played classical music, and for many years, I played jazz.
As a producer, as a songwriter, I've spent a lot of time either in my bedroom or in studios, alone.
When Sonic Youth wrote music, we would rehearse for months before anybody heard anything.
I played more of an advisory role with Public Enemy. I really trusted them to make the music that they wanted to make, and the way The Bomb Squad worked with the... they created their whole own world of music.
I'm a good music provider, and I'm fine with that. I'm a quality music manufacturer.
My father was always playing the piano. He played all kinds of music - Gershwin, all kinds of stuff.
What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.
My musical education started in the limelight, because I found myself surrounded by real musicians, but after my career had taken off.
When I was nine, ten, I was super young, but I installed a program on my computer so I could start producing music. I just started messing around. Then, after a couple of years, I got better. I actually learned some tricks, so I knew what I was doing instead of just messing.
I was in a band in high school and college and I always had a love for music, but I didn't go to a conservatory or anything like that. I was fairly self-taught.
With 'Love Shack,' once we put that chorus in, it did have more of a song structure. Even though the verses are all kind of different, the chorus was there along with 'The Love Shack' - I think that really made it a hit. Once we heard it in the studio, we played it for R.E.M., and they were like, 'Yes this is a hit.'
I've been singing since I could talk. I started playing the piano when I was about 5 or 6. I picked up the guitar on my 20th birthday.
For 'Dynamite,' Max and Luke went to dinner and left me with a melody, and then I put it together.
We can guarantee you that 15 to 30 seconds of any of our songs are going to be good. The rest, we can't guarantee.
DJs are in incredible competition, musically. And they are the most musically creative and sensitive people in all the music charts. I am amazed how they are.
