I've always argued that all Tame Impala melodies are pure pop. It's just that 'Lonerism,' for example, is a completely rumbling, fuzzed out psychedelic rock album. But for me, it was just pop music produced the way that I like to produce it.
I wouldn't say making psychedelic music is my focus. That's not the modus operandi for Tame Impala. It's about making music that moves people.
I've always felt that all the music I've made is psychedelic, including Throbbing Gristle.
I really feel that I've been unjustly exorcised from the story of psychedelic music.
I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live. Unfortunately, its not the way the music business works. If you don't create some kind of public image, it gets created for you.
Public radio is the last oasis of free and independent music. For satellite radio channels, you have to subscribe; commercial stations are as corporate as basic cable.
Well, my mom taught public school music for almost 40 years. And she's about 5 feet - and very mighty. And she would control her kids a lot by giving them the eye, or the stare.
I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.
Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.
I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.
I definitely think it's cool being Puerto Rican and Dominican, but I feel it has no influence on my music.
I tried to give the world a bit of creativity, lyrics. And for me, I will always represent music from Puerto Rico, reggaeton, Latin music.
Puerto Rico's relationship with music is everything. It's an island full of talent and if you grow up there, you grow up living and breathing music.
My dad is Dominican, my mother's Puerto Rican, and I got into bachata at the age of 10 or 11. When I started listening, it had a reputation for being music for hick people. I thought that had to be changed. I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I knew you make something cool if you're cool.
I learned how music works dealing with Jermaine Dupri, and I learned how image works dealing with Puff Daddy.
Puffy's contribution to hip-hop culture was the remix. He offered us the music that his mom played in front of him, with newer drums and younger artists. That worked, and will consistently be there. The remix comes right after the original record, that's something Puffy did to influence the culture.
That was the greatest trick in music that people ever pulled off, to convince artists that you can't be an artist and make money. I think the people that were making the millions said that. It was almost shameful, especially in rock n' roll.
I have a ballet barre in my gym. I turn the music up so loud that the walls are pulsating, and I go for it for an hour.
I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart, the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind.
Any kind of dance or house, remix type music, I really love that. That will really pump me up. I really love anything Beyonce - honestly, that would pump me up.
