It's easy to get people to sing along to cover songs, but when it's your song, it's the coolest.
All my writing takes place during the recording of the master tapes. I never do have songs when I start up an album. I actually write them while I record.
Just because I write some songs about bad women, though, that doesn't mean I hate women. I've written songs that show great love and respect for women too. Songs that talk about strong, upstanding women and their pain. I have women working on my music. They understand where I'm coming from. So does my mama. I always play my music for her before it comes out. Why do you think I wrote "Dear Mama"? I wrote it for my mama because I love her and I felt I owed her something deep.
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.
When I'm in the studio with a writer, I don't mind for them to take the lead and show me something new.
Since his childhood, Bappa has observed me singing and practicing and is well aware of all sorts of recording and singing arrangements. I have a studio at my home, so whenever he needs my help I make sure I stand by him. I often sing for the tunes that he composes.
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.
you see, we live in a cold climate and are not permitted to kiss on the street so I made up a song that wasn't true. I made up a song called Marriage.
I don't have time to sit up and write songs all day. Maybe one day when my kids get older.
I think an album is all about the songs you've worked on and the journey it's taken to get there.
I just being able to write songs I'm proud of and finding some women to play with is exciting.
New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.
Songwriting is such a personal thing and it's hard to be in a room with somebody you don't know and trust.
I have no such ambition of becoming an actor. I want to grow as a musician, singer and songwriter.
That Mick Jagger, I feel sorry for him. After all these years he still can't get no satisfaction.
We love music, and when it's good we flip. And we want to get to the core of why it's good.
Nirvana, Weezer and Smashing Pumpkins, all those bands, at their core, are just really incredible pop music and I think a lot of that stuff has deeply affected the way I approach music.
When I travel too much, it affects the music, and that is the most important thing. As long as I make good music, I can play shows, but if the music starts getting bad, the show offers won't come.
There is always space for good music.
John Prine in particular... just the chord changes combined with the words. He definitely can make you cry a little bit. Just a little bit.
I don't care if it's somebody else's song. Most of the time, you'll find that I'll put my own stamp on it. But I started writing more because, you know, it's easy to regurgitate what somebody else is doing, but it's exciting to be able to come up with your own writing.
Lyrics over some nice beats - that's what the people want from us.
It's such a weird process, songwriting, because you just have to feel it. There's no right or wrong melody or lyric.
I would say that I'm more moved by melody, even though I love to rap.
I think a lot of my songs are very silly and very stupid, written to entertain people, but in the end, I always come to that last line, and I feel that I have to wrap this up with a bit of dignity and a little tear in the eye; otherwise, the joke would be on the characters in the song.
