Jamie Lidell Quotes

I've always loved improvising. That's how I write songs. Creativity has an improvised element to it.

It's really hard to make something that doesn't sound like everything else.

If I don't keep my music varied I go a bit stir crazy, you know? If I don't have the opportunity to jump genres every now and again I feel I'm boxed-in.

It always happens around beach resorts, a certain kind of money gravitates to the scene. The gold goes to the water. People love to wear it, show it off, roll with it. For me, I just find it disgusting.

I really wanted to maintain that bedroom philosophy to creating stuff. I don't believe the hype; I think a great record is because I put a lot of love into it. If people are feeling it, that's fantastic.

I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me. I don't feel it in myself but from an outsider's point of view, I can see they must be thinking, "Who the hell does this guy think he is?" But recently I've been thinking, okay, a white guy can't sing soul, but would a black person be made exempt from singing opera because it's not a tradition that belongs to them? It's the same kind of argument.

I feel myself developing more and more of this soul voice, and...it's a mystery to me. Fundamentally, I just think because I feel it, it's alright.

If a shop has a lot of sections I'll end up putting my record above the James Blunt CDs since he ripped off my bloody artwork and he's selling millions of records! I try to get people to buy mine accidentally.

It's a despicable world we're living in now. It's the most disgusting time for music in terms of big wigs, guys who like playing the game. It's hard to get your stuff heard. I find it really annoying actually. I think my music would appeal to a lot of people but being on Warp in the States it's really hard to get radio play and exposure. We need to push this internet revolution forward quickly.

I find it quite difficult to analyze my own motives for things. I tend to go with a gut feeling in the moment.

I just wanted to have some songs I could stand behind, and when I'm on stage just be loving it. People ask me why I did that and I think perhaps it's because Berlin is quite a gray place and I needed to sympathize with a bit of sunshine.

Accessible music is much harder. I could throw out the other kind of albums with my eyes closed. I wouldn't belittle those who want to do the Tricky thing, but it does make me wonder sometimes.

All kinds of music comes out that I'm not prepared for. Some of it is good, some of it rubbish, but I kind of accept it all. That's the nature of stream-of-consciousness. You can't always come up with your most lucid material in the heat of the moment. I take that risk when I play live. I open up my mind, however fertile a creative springboard it is that evening.

I do really enjoy having a crowd of people out to see me. They really motivate me. I feel really lucky they've come down so I give it what I have got every time.

It's weird how things are really stop-start in my creative process. I can't just turn it on - it just happens kind of randomly and I've just got to ride it when it's good. Surf's up! It's like that.

You have to sit with the songs until they start to live. Or do things straight-up spontaneously. I set up a beat just like I do in the live show, add the lyrics that I wrote in thirty minutes - I already had a topic in mind because I had this crazy experience with this girl who was trying to get close to me and it freaked me out because she was really close to another friend of mine, and I thought, "This is a story, I'm gonna make this into a song."

Improvisation has been with me since I was a kid, and, taking a selfish pleasure from that, I just thought, "What the hell. It might as well be something other people enjoy."

Improvisation is risky. I like that. Another practical reason for that is that you have to go out and play every day on a tour. I couldn't do it if I thought I was going to do the same songs every day in the same order, like a full-on robot.

There's a sense that, on a certain day, you want to destroy everything, even the ones you love. Humans are weird like that. You build an empire and you hate it as soon as it's done. That's because we're never satisfied.

I stopped going out and taking pills and I started hanging out and learning about flat eleven chords.

I was not in a good space in my life, emotionally particularly, so I needed to do something to recharge my batteries emotionally and musically. I took a break and I learnt software and programming a little bit, and that's how I designed my live machine, which I've been using for years.

I made an instrument which I'm really happy about, because I always wanted to have a machine that did this so once I established it as my unique tool, it was like, now I'm going to master it like a guitar.

I'm not the kind of guy who likes to rush things through. I like to take my time and finish when I'm finished.

I do my best to make music spontaneously. It's very personal in a way. It's really a direct connection between me and anyone who's watching. I don't want to be in my own bubble. I'm reaching out.

I can see that in retrospect but I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me.

I really wanted to maintain that bedroom philosophy to creating stuff.

People can rock together, people can do great things together, and that's what you love when you're working with characters and it's all going well.

I wanted to make an album that I wanted to put on myself and could listen to again and again. In the past I've done these records that are very in-depth. I love them and I'm very proud of them but I've always found it hard to listen to them again and again...they're very demanding.

I'm always constantly battling with dry patches. I think I need a Plan B. Thankfully, I've always been able to pull something out of the bag in the heat of the moment.

The layering of sound is by no means a two-dimensional process. Even though I've been doing it for a number of years, the diversity of it is so intriguing. It's a bit like traveling across the water. Though you may have done it time and time again it always hits you in a different way.

The most important thing for me - and the thing I get frustrated about when I don't achieve it - is momentum. Sometimes you hit on it quite naturally and other times it's a mad struggle.

There's a difference between writing, the written word, and music. When you have the blank page it doesn't make a sound, which is like what happens to me every night when I'm playing. There is that crazy moment: the first mark you make on the page. But sound can inspire sound, in a way that words can't inspire words - at least for me. The nature of sound itself is still a huge mystery to me. I'm very happy about that.

There's very much a domino effect when I'm playing. In fact, that's a good way of putting it. I'm trying to topple all the dominos in a single stroke. That would be a show with perfect momentum. Every now and again, you get one of those dominos that moves to the side a little bit, traps things and you have to stand them all up again and see if people will go with you. They'll let you off a few times but if you make too many mistakes they'll get a bit anxious.

I just throw myself into a mad frenzy, whip up a storm and see what comes through.