Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.
When I begin working on a production, I don't really think about my previous album or albums. I try to have a real creative process.
But then there was Hendrix, man. Jimi was really the last cat to freak me. Jimi was playing all the stuff I had in my head. I couldn't believe it, when I first heard him. Man, no one can ever do what he did with a guitar. No one can ever take his place.
Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz.
What motivates us is always new music.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?
I first met Miles Davis about 1947 and played a few jobs with him and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. During this period, he was coming into his own, and I could see him extending the boundaries of jazz even further.
People like Prince don't have to care about anything, but they care because they want music for the future to be great.
For more than 10 years, Daniel Snaith has been playing mad scientist with pop and psychedelic music. As Manitoba, and more recently as Caribou, he's pushed the genres' limits with electronics and studio trickery.
Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With 'Portlandia,' every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.
I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.
When I think of Boris Diaw, I think of Beethoven in the age of the romantics
Prince, Bootsy Collins, Earth Wind & Fire and Parliament all had albums that sound different. I wanted to show, as a hip-hop producer, I'm one of those that can do anything, because I was raised on so much music aside from rap and hip-hop.
Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way.
I'm not really allowed to talk about the Dead though. I think when we are at our best, we definitely do things that the Dead or no other band could do. We explore things and take things to the extreme.
I think when you get past your second album, it all becomes something of a routine. So you have to struggle against that, find a way of making what you do sound fresh and new each time.
What I do is, I look at rock guitar players, and I say to myself, 'What is this guy doing? What does he have that can inspire me?' I try to see what other people are doing and take what they have and turn it and twist it into my own thing.
Musically, I'm always gonna take it a little farther, and Lord willing, people are gonna get that and understand that: that there's not really one genre I'm trying to be in, but just as a producer, as a writer, as an artist, that I'm planning on going farther.
Hip hop is doing the new rock thing; there are no rules. They can do anything, really. And that's inspiring.
When you do a lyric for 'April in Paris,' those who have heard it before can hear it in a different way now. It can add perspective to a great piece of music that does not have a lyric and may be inaccessible to lot of ears because people don't deal with complex music very well.
I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.
As far as long-term goals, one of my favorite artists ever is Tegan and Sara, because every single one of their albums sounds different. Or Beck. I want to be like that because I come from so many different types of musical backgrounds.
I am working on current material, a new album, and that is all still my main motivation of going out and working. We haven't gotten rid of all the new stuff in favor of the old.
If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong - you're not searching; you're not reaching for anything.
