I love the power of words - no music or special effects - and I want to demonstrate that power.
Why can't we have a concert with food? Your typical cooking demonstration, there's just no enthusiasm. There's no energy behind it. I said, 'What if we take a cooking demonstration and fortify it with a lot of good music? ... Drive it to the next level?'
I'll be honest, watching the music industry collapse has been demoralizing and disheartening at times.
Around 20. I'd been trying to transition from the streets to the music business, but I would make demos and then quit for six months. And I started to realize that I couldn't be successful until I let the street life go.
I've been making demos at home for many albums now. So over those years, I've learned how to record music, and I love being at home. I excel when I can make things at home.
I've always been shy, but I see that as a good thing because it kept me focused on music. When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn't come out of my room for years after that. I'd get invited to the movies and I'd say, 'I'm gonna finish a couple of demos.'
There was nothing more I wanted to do than to see my dad react well to my music. I still do. I send him my demos all the time.
I want to use my music to deliver a political message and sometimes to denounce, but I don't want to be a politician.
Put you energy into music. If it fails you, you can become an accountant or a dentist. And then if you become a dentist or an accountant, it's too late to become a musician afterwards.
I am not immune to the lure of a signed record, flier or set list. The fact that your music heroes potentially had, in their own hands, the record you now have in yours is kind of cool. When the musician has departed, it can give the thing a unique power.
The music for 'The Departed' could have been played by an orchestra, but you make a decision about orchestration based on the context of the film. You want the music to broaden the scope of a film, not just repeat what you're seeing.
I always say to people that I left hip-hop in '97, meaning that I departed from listening to predominately hip-hop and just started really getting into records from the late '60s, early '70s. And once I made that change, I realized how much great music was made back in the day, and it started to become apparent how much we've lost in music.
When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.
There's no place for Depeche Mode and the Sisters of Mercy in the music I make with my band. If I was a fan, I wouldn't want to hear that on a Black Veil Brides record. It was important for me and for the integrity of the band not to tarnish it.
There are Depeche Mode parties around the world where people listen to our music all night long. The more remixes we can give them, the more interesting those nights have got to be.
I should in fairness add that my taste in music is reputedly deplorable.
Music is the most powerful sound there is, often inappropriately deployed. It's powerful for two reasons: you recognize it fast, and you associate it very powerfully.
Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.
Of course I danced a lot when I was making 'Swingers.' The swing music scene was big in Hollywood, and I went to places like The Derby. And, after I wrote it and was trying to get it made, I would go every week so I'd be good at dancing.
I get to listen and enjoy music that is partially mine. Maybe influenced and guided. I created some simple outlines, but ultimately, I'm hearing a derivative work.
