When we came out, they just labelled us 'ratchet music' cos we said 'ratchet' a lot. Ratchet means that's it's ghetto, but I would just call the music we're making just good music.
I've done well, I've been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It's the music business. You are a business. That's what they do. So you've got to protect yourself.
I got to Nashville on Labor Day weekend in 1972. And the Grand Ole Opry is still there, the Country Music Hall of Fame is still there. And the roots of country music are still there. It's where the authenticity and the empowering force lies.
If there was no ladies, I wouldn't wanna be on the planet. Ladies, friends, and music - without those three, I wouldn't wanna be here.
I'm also very pleased that we were able to include a full orchestrated score for Dragon's Lair 3D. The 40 different music pieces blend with the action to make you feel more a part of the whole adventure.
The connection of what I do to flamenco lies in the whole lament, whole cry, whole pouring back into the earth and giving energy back to the earth. It's a cry and a celebration. That's what music, sound, vibration should do. It should spark energy in someone.
I produce some of my music videos on a $200 budget. But I produce most of my videos on zero budget. I have a studio in my apartment - which is actually just a green screen I have tacked on my wall and some lamps to light everything.
It really surprises me that people in this day and age still write such busy music and fill up every space with layer upon layer of sound... it's like musical landfill.
Films go into vaults, art into museums, and music into halls of fame. Most fashion is worn for a few seasons and off-loaded into the recycling bin or, worse, some landfill.
My parents are super westernized. My mom listens to western music, my dad was like a pub landlord so he properly embraced English life. But the truth is they both came from tiny villages in Sri Lanka.
Living in a capital in Europe but still surrounded by mountains and ocean, my relationship to music was strongest walking to school and back. I would sing to myself and very quickly started mapping out my melodies to landscapes - at the time I just thought it was very matter of fact, a common thing to do.
Music really transcends languages, and it means so much.
Music is not free to make. Studios are going under because people now work at laptops. Quantity over quality is what begins to happen; the idea of what quality is has changed.
It's 2013, and you can make music anywhere. We've got laptops.
I didn't start my label out of a business perspective. I did it because I wanted to create a platform where new musicians can have the chance to get into a studio, work with each other, and get their music noticed by a large audience.
I don't know the names of any pop musicians. Pop music is standardised; it's made to please the largest audience possible. I also compose to please a large audience, but when you listen to my music, you understand that I have studied and applied the whole history of composition.
For me, even if I'm singing to a very large audience, like in 'The Sound of Music Live' or in the 'She Loves Me' broadcast, I try to imagine that I am just singing to each individual. It doesn't change my energy other than being perhaps a bit more nervous. I try to sing to each person and right into their individual heart.
I lived in a small village outside the city and grew up in a large family, so my world was very much centred around that. I used to sing in the local church, and I would also occasionally sing in the local pubs for which I used to get a few bob. That, for me, was the start of my interest in music, which has obviously expanded since then.
Friends came on the road, came on tour, came in my music videos; I got in the studio with them. I'm a really loyal person, and I don't have a really large group of friends, but the people I hang out with I really, really care about, and they continue to be a part of my life.
I get uncomfortable in large groups of people and loud music.
