After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.
In the beginning, I was so inspired by the music. I had the option to make something modern with classic undertones, but I wanted to make something that was exactly like that old sound.
Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, and Silverchair are taking the simplest elements of Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam and melding them into one homogenous thing.
Generally, you are held to a sound and that becomes your sound. That gets branded as your sound, and all the copycats start with it because the labels are looking for that sound.
I hear a lot of people saying my stuff sounds the same. When you're in my position, people come to you to give them the same sound in a different type of way.
It's not easy to sound like Dilla, but you can make beats like Dilla with your computer, so that's why everybody sounds like Dilla.
The most obvious thing you can't do with a guitar synthesizer is to really sound like a guitar.
I think the voice does that perfectly adequately without being imitated by other instruments.
Matching sounds in your head is made a lot easier with all the technology. It is the nonelectronic noises that are challenging, as you have to find ways of communicating those to the people you're working with.
If it takes you three years to set up a studio, and you've made one track with that setup, then the logical thing to do is not change anything and just do another one using the same set of sounds.
