I try to find the right director who won’t compromise his or anyone else’s integrity, and yet be political enough to give the studio what they want, yet put up a fight to maintain that integrity.
There was a recording studio in my school, and I knew this kid who had a key, so I’d write lyrics in school while I was in class, and then, in a 10-minute break, I recorded the song ‘Hurt’ in one go at the school studio.
I work very hard on getting the songs as direct and examined as I can before I go in the studio.
I don’t think that a company should own a studio and the network, and program for their own network. It hurts the creativity – it is not a level playing field.
I’ve just built a studio in my mama’s old bedroom, which I thought was fitting; she died last year. We’ve recorded nine songs recorded in there already; we’re sort of just chipping away.
We met Ferg at one of our shows in L.A. She gave us her number. For the song ‘Shut Up’ on Elephunk, we needed a vocalist. Someone said ‘yo, remember that white girl – we should get her in the studio.’ Since then, we’ve become friends. She’s one of the guys now, she isn’t just a girl.
I love being in the studio, and I am a huge fan of live music. Without writing good stuff in the studio, you have nothing to play live.
I created a show called ‘Crash’ for Starz, which was their first original drama, and that was not a good experience. I had a great time working with the cast and crew, but it was a young network and an intrusive studio, and to be honest I didn’t really enjoy the movie ‘Crash.’
When I went into the studio I created a sound that I wanted to hear.
In the studio, if they need to come down to the floor, things are a bit pushy, although it is easier for them to say things directly rather than through about five people.
I really just like making music. People call that ‘work.’ Like, ‘Oh, you’re going to the studio to work?’ No, that’s even what I do in my off day. I love recording.
Records have never really been my strong suit. I’ve always been a much better live act. I didn’t understand the language of the studio. You sing differently in a studio. The language, the craft – it’s just a whole different deal. I avoided the problem on my first record by doing a live album.
I don’t believe in making pencil sketches and then painting landscape in your studio. You must be right under the sky.
I’m not tied to budgets. I’m tied to the story that I want to tell, and how much it’s going to cost is up to whatever the economic situation of the studio is.
Multiplicity was a movie that tested really well. People seeing the movie really liked it, but then the studio couldn’t market it. We opened on a weekend with nine other films.
In the studio the director controls the actor’s every move, every inflection, every expression.
There’s a lot of different parts to me, so it makes total sense to me that I would do a big TV show or studio movie and then do a free comedy show the next day. They both feel equally important to me.
Now on the other hand, if someone is selling a product, opening a dance studio, or has some other aim to help themselves, then I tend to look askance at some of these strange stories from outer space.
At the end of the day, if you don’t have a record contract, a studio or a guitar, you can still write songs. You’re still an artist. That’s something no one can take away.
Women were real box office stars in the ’40s, more so than men. People loved to see women’s films. I think it was better then, except for the studio system.
I’d do a demo recording by myself, layering instruments on top of one another, and while that’s fun, it doesn’t have the same impact as getting some great players together in a great studio with a great engineer and producer, then waiting for the magic.
A powerful studio boss doesn’t want to be bested by a woman, even in chess. And a successful agent steps on a lot of toes. You lose actors jobs so you can get them for your own clients.
I’ve made three studio albums and one live one with my brother. It’s melodic singer-songwriter acoustic-rock music.
I used to work in Macon, Georgia and Spartanburg, South Carolina where the studio was about half the size of your living room.
Even though I build buildings and I pursue my architecture, I pursue it as an artist. I deliberately keep a tiny studio. I don’t want to be an architectural firm. I want to remain an artist.
I consider the recording studio where I was born.
The problem is, when you’re making an animated movie, the studio has an illusion in their minds – and it’s really not true – that because it’s a drawing, it can be changed at any time.
I use the studio as my drug. That’s where I relieve everything at – the studio.
The magic can happen in a studio. Special things can happen in a recording studio, even though it may seem like a clinical environment from the outside looking in.
We wanted it more live and raw. We didn’t want a studio sound.
The early years of Hanna-Barbera were more fun than the later ones. I was working more in the creative areas of timing and direction then. But as the studio grew, I became more involved in administration and got away from the creative aspects.
We bled writing these songs, we bled in the studio, and now we’re out bleeding getting them right live.
What one does in the studio is to pose a series of problems to oneself. I’ve got to look for some deeper meaning, for some reason for this thing to be in the world. There’s enough stuff in the world.
I’d like to work with Bjork if I could get in the studio with her. We could probably travel to a different planet, you know what I’m saying?
When I write in the studio, I tend to gravitate toward the ability to play really loud, aggressive, post-punk stuff, with big, heavy guitars and a big rock drum sound.
By the time I’m in the studio recording my parody, 10,000 parodies of that song are on YouTube.
Recording at home enables one to eliminate the demo stage, and the presentation stage in the studio, too.
I never walked the streets of New York hoping to be a musical comedy star. For one thing, they would have thought I was too tall, because l was five feet eight and a half, and they were all little bitty things running around in the studio at that time.
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.
When we were in the design studio I always was pretending like I was in a closet asking my friend before I step out into the world what do I look like? And everybody wants that honest friend before they go and go to dinner or go to an event.
So when bands work with me and it’s 10 o’clock, usually you’d have to be getting out of the studio, we could go on until 2 in the morning cause it’s my place!
I spend six to seven days a week in the studio making records. I don’t have time to go do a lot of things that you have to play the political game to get recognition with the Grammy crew.
Tim Conway was a little different from the rest. He was always in the back of the studio building something with the prop man, rewriting his lines, or plotting our demise.
Often, equipment can as easily function as a security blanket for musicians unwilling or unable to risk anything personal in the studio. Whether one catches the feeling on a record is a subjective matter. How can you be sure? The machinery can hold out the promise of at least mechanical perfection.
I started on ‘Saturday Night Live’ the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn’t get a guest – which was often back then since he was just starting out – he would just call me down to be a guest.
If you can sell that you’re the King of Scotland, or Henry V on a tiny stage in a studio theater somewhere, then you can probably sell that you’re a starship captain or a time traveler.
Most days, we don’t get to the ‘SNL’ studio until noon. On Monday, we pitch the host, and that’s our shortest, lightest day. Tuesday is our longest day – some people don’t leave until Wednesday night. It’s just a long, long day.
I do a lot of performing, but don’t get a chance to go to the studio and write good music.
I think I’m the only singer who doesn’t have a temper. The only time I got angry was at a music studio when I was made to wait for three hours without being informed about the delay in the recording.
Social media is a double-edged sword. I’ve gotten in trouble for announcing, too soon, something that the network or the studio wanted to do, and it steals some of the thunder, so to speak.
The studio is not the place to write. You need to be 75% ready when you go into the studio, and then the music can develop to the next stage.
One of my earliest memories is being inside the recording studio and I see the shadow of a figure that looks an awful lot like Walt Disney. Then the door opened and Mr. Disney walked in and said, ‘Hi Clint.’ I won’t ever forget that.
I’ve become a workaholic. When the shows slow down and there’s no press and I can get my time to myself in the studio with my music, I get into this zone, man. I enter this incredible space where I’m just making music. And I feel like I can work with anybody – with Elton John, with Hanson – and I can make something incredible.
In most of the stuff that I’ve done over the years as a sideman, I wasn’t really a session musician, because to me, a session musician is a guy who makes his living in the studio, and I never really did that.
