I don't know if there's a point where
I can't find inspiration and when I get stuck, there's so many other things
that I go to sort of get that inspiration.
I can listen to other people's music.
I can practice other forms of art, you know.
To me, it's important for musicians
to understand all forms of art so that you can understand your expression.
So if I'm bored and I can't really get an idea, I'll go out and shoot photography
and it'll inspire me to come back and make music.
So I kind of find inspiration in using my other senses, I guess you would say.
And I stop listening for a second and I go see for a second and then come back to listening.
One thing that's been really helpful for me is choosing like aesthetic preferences
and defining those beforehand so that what I create sits in its own world,
and making some slightly different choices from convention and so on.
I do think it's important to like, understand convention.
I didn't believe that in the beginning as an artist, but you do need to know what
the parameters are and you do need to have some awareness of the world that you're
putting music into for it to be meaningful to people.
So knowing them and then breaking them is probably a good way to do it.
And having it... I don't I think. Yeah, having an aesthetic preference for each...
It doesn't have to remain the same throughout your whole career, but for each record,
giving it a world and a space and kind of honoring what that idea is or that work is
and then trying to bring out its best qualities.
For me this year, there was also this one thing...
I have to do this particular... I want to create a body of work.
I want to do an album. I want to do this, I want to do that.
And then, yeah, that was exactly the point where everything started to really freeze up for me.
And then, yeah, the minute I said, OK, it's going to come at some point,
then you sort of see that window of opportunity much more easily.
And maybe it actually or at least from this particular year, I think
the tracks that I was able to produce happen a lot faster for that reason as well.
Often, but sometimes I play something that I really believe is fantastic in the studio.
And when I play in front of an audience, I notice that it's actually really not good.
Um, that's a classical failure.
But the failures are great because the failures are
pointing in the future whilst the achievements are pointing in the past.
If you achieved something, you can say, well, what I did yesterday was really great.
If you fail with something, you say, well, actually tomorrow I'm going to redo the bassline.
This is great because it means you have an idea of what to do next.
The head will get you killed.
Being up in your head will get you killed and it'll kill your creativity, too.
I had to develop a reflex
that any time I felt resistance, which is the opposite of flow to me,
you know, I would have to assume I must be in my head.
Any time you're working in time,
any time you're doing anything where you want to be in the flow and you're not in the flow...
just assume you're resisting because you're in your head.
Now the flow needs to flow, man, but it can't flow if you put the dam up here
and then all of it gets trapped in here.
If you've trapped the flow up here, you're just going to drown in thought.
When you get out of your head
and you delegate some of this attention and focus into your actual limbs,
into your body, you break the dam and you allow flow to happen.
And if you're taking some of the focus away from here,
putting it here, it's the easiest and fastest way to get out of your head.
In my class, what I would do is when
they would start going like this, I'd tell them to do the "Da Vinci Shake,"
which is basically what I do on stage anyway.
And I'd say, go like this...
You know, like Bruce Lee said, you have to have your cup empty, you know,
your cup is full and you won't let go of what's in the cup.
So shake it out, you know, and you're shaking some of that tension loose
and putting it back in your fingers, so...