I get really affected by songs as a music listener - they mean so much and they feel so significant.
Confusion is the only state of mind we have where we are really out of our patterns and what we expect. Because of that, you're open to new experiences. The irritation in concert performances is really important. When people get really irritated, they listen on the front of their stool and ask, "What's going on?" If I deliver what they expect - sad, soft piano music - then people would just shut down.
It seems like everywhere I go I can't get real love.
It's not too hard to play Fender Rhodes keyboard if you get the right one, with some good action on the keys. If you got an old one that ain't been touched up, it could be kind of difficult to get real loose on it.
Coca-Cola can get really fresh output because it is getting people who are outside the traditional model and they are combining ideas in very novel ways.
Prince is extremely soulful, but he can get real rock-'n'-rollish. So can Lenny Kravitz. Lenny's real soulful but he's got that rock with him, too. On the whole, I guess black folks ain't trying to handle rock-'n'-roll, really.
You can get real wacky on edibles.
When I was young, I was really, really obsessed with Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes. Because my mom was a projectionist in college, she was somehow able to get a real projector. And she had some connections, so she would get real prints, and we'd put up a sheet. The first movies I saw were To Kill a Mockingbird [1962], Gigi [1958], A Woman Under the Influence [1974]. Then when I was old enough to be able to rent movies, I went through a very big Cassavetes phase.
If you start asking how do we make life meaningful and life never ends, then you get into sort of these terrible sort of metaphysical quandaries and it gets really, really bleak looking.
I do enjoy a beer. And a shot of vodka with some apple juice is what loosens me up before I go onstage, because I get really nervous. I wish I could say it was something more healthy, like Pilates.
It would get really alienating, to have my face be the face of a cause. So much just comes down to the songs. I just want to give us the opportunity to write great songs. Even our work in Haiti is limited by how good our songs are. We just need to get rid of as much of the bullshit as possible, so we can have a life, so we have something to write about.
You get to actually make your movie. As a filmmaker, that's the dream. That's why you get up in the morning, to be able to do that. You feel constrained sometimes, but if the movie makes sense in the budget realm, then it isn't hard.
I get really restless if I'm not working. I generate or try to generate my own stuff. I'm constantly on the prowl for working with the people I love and respect.
Singing your own songs live is so personal, it's like standing there reading out your diary pages. I still get really nervous so I would have to say performing is the greater rush for me.
My new favorite thing is to wake up in hotel rooms, and write on the hotel pads. Usually, it's nothing. I leave it in a hotel and get really embarrassed about the maid picking it up, wondering what in the hell I'm talking about.
I always think it's interesting to switch genres, because if I read a script and I know exactly how to manifest a story, I don't really want to do it anymore, because I've already done it in my head. It becomes less interesting. If I read something that's challenging, I get really passionate and usually fall in love with it, because I feel I need to do it. I need to tell the story; I need to find a way to make it happen.
When you go into the whole realm of creating your own music and seeing the project through, it's increasingly difficult because nowadays a lot of people are making music all on their own - the individual instead of the band. And when you have such a solid vision and you spend so much time working on one idea and allowing it to manifest in your mind through a record, and then you have to go and find people to help you see it through live, it gets really overwhelming, to have to project and really clearly state what you're trying to do and how you want them to do it.
What happens when I'm making a new album is I try not to listen to music that's coming out at the time. I turn off the radio and don't read any music blogs, because I tend to get really distracted by new music. When I hear it, I think, "Should I be doing that?"
The appeal for drugs has dwindled. Except for actual opium. If I could get real opium, I'd stir it in my hot coffee every morning. People keep giving me marijuana. I've got pouches in a drawer. I've been meaning to smoke a joint and watch Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. I planned to do this three months ago and I still haven't gotten around to it.
That's happened a couple times: Billy Joel. It was just, "You sound like Billy Joel." And I get really upset about that. No offense to that guy, but it's not for me.
Not that Matador is a major label, but its major enough for me. On one level we're on Matador, but our amps still might explode on stage or they'll be an echo in the mic. It's like climbing a ladder. I like to climb it really slowly. I could probably get really professional right away, but I like to take baby steps and find my own way.
It's weird - I can listen to a guitar player or a rock record over and over again and really enjoy whatever the guitarist is doing. But when I do it, after 30 seconds or so I get really frustrated and can't understand why I, or anyone else, would want to write songs.
You're lucky if you're in three great movies, or even one great movie. I've been so lucky. But if you rely on the business to dictate whether you're happy, it gets really complicated. You just can't do that. There have been times in my life that I've done that, and I've found it depressing.
You would hope that coworkers who are dating can act professionally. But then again, some people can handle it, and some people can't. And those who can't kind of ruin it for the rest of us. Sometimes it's hard to be around an office relationship that went sour. When two actors have to be onscreen together, it can get really, really awful.
I was really looking forward to doing the thing that I do - I basically appear just at the beginning and at the end of the 'The Glory of the World' play - but when I got to opening night, I started to get really sad that that was the last time I was going to see the play as a spectator without actually being in it.
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