I wrote ‘Actor’ all on the computer. I didn’t touch any instruments until I was in the studio. So while I had all these ornate arrangements, I didn’t have any songs.
The first time I went to Abbey Road and put those headphones on, I discovered I had two voices. I no longer had to shout in the studio, but I can’t knock the Cavern or the other clubs because they gave me my strong voice.
I always wanted to be a full-time musician. Every television job I had was a means to buy a grand piano, or to put in a recording studio, or something like that.
You see a Clint Eastwood movie, and you might not know if it’s from Universal or Warner Bros. or another studio. He has affiliations with so many studios now, but there was a time when you’d just look at a movie and think, ‘Oh, that’s a Warner Bros. film.’
We are just at the studio, me and my choreographers, we are spending like 30 nights and we are thinking, what is my next dance move? Because in Korea there are huge expectations about my dancing. So it was a lot of pressure.
If Miles Davis hadn’t died it would have been interesting to do an album with him, but there wasn’t much else that would have got me into the studio… although Herbie Hancock has just been in touch about doing something and that would be an interesting combination.
We were all ruled by the studio system. I signed a contract for seven years.
In 1977, I had Paul Rivera hotrod six Fender Deluxes for me. At that time, a lot of studio guys in L.A. were using those – not so much live guys but studio guys. They had terrific tone and great technique, and I was like, ‘Well, I like having terrific tone even though I don’t have any technique.’
Good soul music should make you feel something in your heart, in your body, and in your spirit. That’s what I try to do both in the studio and on stage.
When I go into the studio I just want to make something that feels good.
Some people say I appeared on the Phil Donahue show to tell ‘my’ sex change story but I’ve never appeared on his show for any reason… not even as a member of the studio audience.
I guess in the independent market, I’d be getting offers, but in terms of big studio films, I still have to audition. I don’t think my name is that well-known, I don’t have much of a following to guarantee box office success yet.
I lived in a studio apartment until my mid-30s. I don’t have an extravagant lifestyle.
It’s big production. It’s huge. It’s using studio technology to your benefit. You don’t go in and play live and then just take the tapes and get them mastered. You have to create.
The studio rented a house for my wife in Los Angeles under a phony name to keep reporters away. Whenever I wanted to visit her and my children, I would have to sneak in the back door after dark.
I have nothing against these big CGI movies, but there are not enough of the other ones – the ones with stories about character that have a beginning, a middle and an end. I said that to a couple of studio heads and they said, ‘That’s novel.’
There’s no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.
When you worked in a studio it was the studio system that you kind of missed because it was a big, big family. I mean MGM had 5,000 people working a day there. You miss it.
In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that.
I think the challenges for me was to go into the studio with these incredible jazz players and come up to their level of excellence. That’s always a challenge.
I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it’s me who has to come up with all the ideas.
One of the amazing things about the Internet is that the content creators are the gatekeepers. We can think of an idea and execute it quickly, and we didn’t have to pitch the idea to a major network or convince a studio head to sign-off on the concept.
When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.
Warner Bros. is just this amazing historic studio that does great movies.
I love getting into a studio with a bunch of friends. When the day’s done, we’ve made something. We recognize that we’re from different walks of the music industry, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be collaborating. That’s what I’m trying to create with thenewno2 – a sense of community.
Well, I think on second units it’s all about execution. Because you come in there, you don’t have to worry so much about the studio and all the other actors and all that.
You know, they just don’t make big movie stars the way they used to, maybe because the system has changed, the studio system, but it’s sad to see people like Jimmy Stewart go, all the giants of the past.
I park two blocks away from Nickelodeon studios and I hop on my skateboard and I skateboard the rest of the way to the studio.
Right when I moved to L.A., I started writing. I wrote some screenplay. I’m sure it’s terrible. But I wrote a screenplay by myself. When I first moved to L.A., I had no friends. I didn’t know anybody. I just sat in a little studio apartment, and I wrote a screenplay.
If you start out trying to achieve a specific thing – like doing stadium shows or going into the studio and doing an album – the end result is what counts.
I am blessed to perform in the studio and on the concert stage.
The thing that’s characteristic of my performance is that I literally do drag the whole studio onto the stage.
Every Vacation movie didn’t just make the studio money. They each made the studio a lot of money.
Disney was a family film studio. I was supposed to be their young, leading man. After they found out I was involved with someone, that was the end of Disney.
‘Firepower’ is the eighteenth full-length studio album for Judas Priest. That’s a lot of metal songs over the decades, and the writing process is always the same, really.
Growing up, I was obsessed with Disney movies like ‘The Little Mermaid,’ ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Beauty And The Beast.’ I was always singing the songs from these movies, so to find myself in the studio with Alan Menken was an amazing experience. In fact, it was a dream come true.
And the general opinion is we are much better on stage than in the studio.
I love being in the studio.
When I’m in the studio, there are no boundaries.
There’s something fun about the road because there’s no 9 to 5. But I do find myself making the effort to take some time off. As much as I don’t want to, I have to. I need to reset. I love weeks off, because I can go in the studio and just be creative again.
Each multiplex has screens allocated to each studio. The screens need filling. Studios have to create product to fill their screen, and the amount of good product is limited.
If Miles Davis hadn’t died it would have been interesting to do an album with him, but there wasn’t much else that would have got me into the studio… although Herbie Hancock has just been in touch about doing something and that would be an interesting combination.
We seem to do better in the studio than we do in a live environment.
I’m a little more comfortable in that role. I love being in the studio.
I worked three and then six hours a day in my studio with strict discipline and emotion. I obtained awards usually granted to other foreigners during the end-of-year admission tests.
When it began I wrote this passionate letter to people I knew, studio members, of course, and other people with whom we have worked over the years and I said come and teach our students.
It’s much easier to have a diversified career as an electronic musician than it is as a drummer. Nothing against drummers. If you’re a drummer, you just wait around for people to ask you to play drums. But if you have your own studio and can make music, you have the ability to approach music a lot differently.
Having a studio tell you when to jump and how high eight months of the year for six years is not a relationship I want to get into again.
I found my sound through exploring. I was in the studio yelling, going low, trying things, and that’s how I found that I have a lot of sounds.
They studio were flabbergasted when they discovered how interested everybody was in ‘those old people.’ And now many upcoming projects feature older people; it’s become a trend.
I had done another show called ‘United States of Cars,’ which was a pilot that didn’t get picked up. And they said, ‘You know, we’re doing ‘Top Gear,’ and would you like to meet the guys?’ It was the wild – most wild audition I ever had because I never went to a studio or a producer’s office.
I only made two studio movies, that was a long time ago and obviously I removed myself. I think some of that is geographical. I live in New York and I want to work there, it’s as simple as that.
Sometimes, I make 50 songs and pick out the best 10. I’ve been in the studio all day, all night, making the beat, writing the raps. You never know what’s gonna be a hit.
I like to explore a lot of textural, arrangement aspects in the studio.
I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over.
