Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I didn't start making music in order to be famous.
A 'GQ' award is kind of, like, insane. It's a huge thing.
D'Angelo could sing the phonebook and it would sound good.
I never studied jazz technically; I just know and love the music.
My mother was pretty strict. I hated it, but maybe it made me a bit more sensible.
I used to be a serious sneaker addict, but I've moved on a little bit from those days.
Stevie Wonder doing 'We Can Work It Out' by the Beatles is one of my favorite records of all time.
I know it sounds really lame and hater-ish, but I think 2009 was maybe the worst year for music ever.
I had a somewhat frenetic childhood because my mum and dad split up when I was five, and then my mum remarried.
I rarely ever respond to misquotes and wrong information. Plus, it only serves to bring attention to the matter.
Kids can make fun of you for having the wrong shoelaces: that's just kids. But I don't think I had any trouble making friends.
I think Katy B encapsulates young London in a way I never could. She reps London harder than anyone song-wise since Lily Allen.
You have to put these hooks in it, you know? You've got to make sure you got all that ear candy in it to get it through the gate.
I'm always nervous before starting a record because I can never sleep. I'm like, 'I have no good ideas, everyone is gonna see through me.'
The cologne you pick should make you feel good when you go out with it. I think confidence comes across more than any other of our attributes.
I never had that wicked stepmother or evil stepfather thing at all. I'm very close to both step-parents and I consider them to be my parents, too.
Making music is a lifestyle; go to the studio and sit in front of your computer, drum machine or guitar for 10 hours a day. The good stuff will come.
I think I have an inherent modest level of stress, but I'm only super-aware of it when it goes away, when I'm on holiday and I think, 'Oh this feels pretty good.'
I don't think I've got an innate sense of style, but I guess I'm influenced by those I love and admire. You hope that you combine those influences in a way that becomes your own.
And then, also, when you're doing something that doesn't sound like anything else on the radio at the time, you almost need to, like, ironclad it to make sure it gets through, you know?
I think it's important for a guy to be 'protective,' shall we say, but you don't want to come off like you just rolled around in an Old Spice factory. Everyone has their own natural scent.
I really love something about being around the recording studios - you know, like, those days in the '80s they'd be, like, in the studio 'til 4, 5, 6 in the morning working on these songs.
I think that the things that are interesting sometimes, when you're striving for a sound, you just get it wrong 'cause of your own limitations. That's when you get something kind of original.
I don't have a crazy rider clause saying I have to stay at fancy hotels. I don't have a problem with staying at a Marriott. But I will admit that I've gotten just basic, regular service there.
My mother was incredibly strict, especially when we moved to New York. Compared with most of the American parents, who seemed so relaxed with their children, my mother was virtually a dictator.
I'd be saying, 'No, I'm so not a DJ, I'm a producer.' But no matter how much faith you may have in yourself, until you have a hit you can't really run around telling everyone you're a producer.
I think, you know, for me, whatever I need to slot into to make that music the best it can be or help the artists, or whoever I'm working with, achieve whatever vision they have in their head for a song.
So sometimes if I'm working with a rapper, like Ghostface Killah or Nas, producing usually means, in hip-hop, that you make the music. You make the beat, and you give it to them. And they write the rhymes.
I think that that spirit, or at least the raucousness of maybe that, is in there. And then yeah, like, along the way, you fine tune it 'cause you're thinking, like, OK, we need to now turn this into a song.
And music is kind of a - it's like a finicky industry to be in of course. Like, tastes change. You're hot one minute; you're not - you know, I've been through it quite a few times, like, on both sides of it.
When I started 'Record Collection,' I had no idea that it would come out sounding the way that it did, and that's one of the best things about the creative process, taking turns with the things you didn't know.
You just pick up a little bit of whatever the ones you think are appropriate, and you try and, you know, combine them. And then you bring in other people that are great for the things that you're not so good at.
You know, that was the first time [with Any Winehouse] that I probably ever used a baritone sax. And it's certainly the texture that, you know - it's all over the record 'cause it's a nice compliment to her tone.
And sometimes, I'd be allowed to be hanging out in the studio, which I just loved kind of, like, being in the room with these big recording desks, with all these, like, buttons and knobs and watching the guys use them.
I think that where it came from and the initial birth of it - it did come out of a jam at Bruno's studio, you know? He was playing drums. And Jeff Bhasker, who co-produced the record with us, is on synths, and I was playing bass.
Sometimes I have to shut off the omnipresent disco ball and flashing lights that are always in my head. It's a part of maturing, I guess - just learning that it's not just always about a quick, easy fix of getting people to dance.
I knew I wanted to be in music, but I didn't know my role, so I did everything from interning at Rolling Stone to writing heavy metal fanzines to playing in a high-school band, and I think all those things probably helped in a way.
I vaguely remember in the '90s when Calvin Klein started making unisex CK1. Don't worry about whether it's made for men or women. Listen, we all like to put mum's clothes on sometimes. What's important is that it feels right for you.
I guess the best thing about having a successful record like this is, like, I know I'm at least good for another five years, like, before everyone starts to like - all the haters start to come out again. And that's really what it is.
You draw the best things from your parents and family. You're going to pick up some of the bad things as well - there's a temper that runs through my dad's side of the family that I'm not especially keen on picking up a giant block of.
You know, it's weird. It's - it hasn't really changed my life in any kind of way that I can measure. I mean, it's obviously such an insanely amazing thing. You know, none of my other records I've ever had before even broke into the top 100.
I'd been DJ-ing in these clubs in N.Y. and I hated everything that was coming out. So I decided I would make it myself. People were making mash-ups or remixes, but I was extra bored, so I actually started remaking these records from scratch.
I made my name and reputation DJing in hip-hop clubs in New York. 'Celebrity DJ' is a term that I hated. To me a celebrity DJ is someone that's on 'Big Brother' or in some kind of B-movie who gets a gig to DJ even though they're not talented enough to do it.
Basically, there's a good friend of mine who works at EMI Publishing, a publishing company. He had asked me - he was like, you know, do you know this girl, Amy Winehouse? She's in New York for a day. She's kind of meeting people to maybe work with on her second album.
Dave Guy, the trumpet player, is an incredible musician. He came into the studio one day, and they had just cut a cover of "Sign, Seal, Deliver" for something with Sharon Jones, and I just was blown away by how they got that sonic. I mean, it was just so much the real deal.
DJing is an art that I have the utmost respect for, and I've been practising it since I was 17 years old. Doing Tom Cruise wedding-type things becomes the focal point of every interview, and you realize that you have to cut it out if you don't want to be answering questions about that.
Being a die-hard Knicks fan, I remember hunting down these orange-and-blue Nikes that they only released in England. And I used to hunt for sneakers when I DJ'd in Japan. But then Nike flooded the market with a head-spinning array of color combinations and it just didn't seem cool anymore.
It's like every time you have one of these, you're sort of - your lease is renewed another five years. And that's kind of great for me 'cause that's all I really want to be doing still at this point, like just making records and getting to work with, like, artists that I think are exciting.
My grandmother always used to wear this English perfume called Tuberose and then she died and then I dated this girl who wore the same thing. Every time I hung out with her, I could only think of my recently deceased grandmother. So sometimes a signature scent can be good and sometimes it can be bad.
I mean, my wife is always like - I don't write lyrics. So I couldn't, like, really technically write a song for anyone. I could write a very nice instrumental. So she always sort of gives me a hard time because it's just such a ridiculously impossible standard to live up to, that your step-dad wrote that song for your mom.