The best way to do that is to pick up a new instrument or an instrument that you don't typically write on and see where it takes you. Whether it's using an acoustic guitar, or piano, or electronics as tools, all of these lead to creating different types of songs and I used all of these methods for this record.
I'm a huge Beatles fan, but I've only really gotten into them as an adult.
People get so attached to a position which they identify themselves with that they just spurt it out, but they can't really give you a viable reason why they feel that way.
I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.
Civilization is a failure. We need to think what we can do together in love and peace.
People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.'
Touring and putting out records is fun and cool, but I've been doing it for a long time.
In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.
I hate injustice, and I can't help but speak against it. But I don't want to get involved in politics.
I believe very firmly that indigenous populations had a really good, intuitive understanding of why we're here. And we're trying to gain that same understanding through psychology and intellect in modern civilization.
It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.
Corporatization is the descendant of industrialization.
I've always worked on all different types of music, some with specific project goals and deadlines and some not. Sometimes I would write a piece of music that is almost like a film score or weird electro pieces, wherever the muse took me, and I still do that.
The most important thing about music that I've learned after all this time is that to me, it's a way of reaching the truth.
It's the idea of a multi-sensory experience stemming from music that opened my interest into painting, to be honest.
With most of the songs and music that I've composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral.
I like having songs that go from the personal to the kind of inter-relational, universal, because everything comes back to micro/macro and everything's tied in.
I think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times.
As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.
I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.
