Adam Schlesinger Quotes

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Adam Schlesinger

Profession : Musician

Birth : October 31, 1967

With the TV stuff, we usually hand in final, finished tracks. The turnaround time is so tight that there's no time to demo anything; you just do it.

Adam Schlesinger

Bands like R.E.M. and even The Replacements, during that initial wave of college rock, would sell 40, 50, 100,000 copies of a record, and that would be seen as extremely successful - and definitely enough to keep doing more.

Adam Schlesinger

For me, it's just more satisfying when you follow the rules rather than just make a bunch of sounds. The magic of just making noise in the studio goes away after a while.

Adam Schlesinger

What should a song be about? It's a trick question for songwriters because lots of amazing songs aren't 'about' anything. Or, at least, they're not about anything that's obvious or logical.

Adam Schlesinger

London is a vast, complex city designed by the same guy who created the Habitrail.

Adam Schlesinger

I think with musicals, it's much more part of the script. They don't want songs that would stop the show; they need songs that keep the plot moving.

Adam Schlesinger

I think one of the pitfalls of doing your own music is that sometimes you can never be satisfied with it: you're afraid to say that it's done, and you keep reworking it or re-recording it or re-writing it.

Adam Schlesinger

I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.

Adam Schlesinger

I generally prefer to come in to the studio with a fully written song and then work on the arrangement with the band. Sometimes even the arrangements are pretty much already worked out in my head, but other times we experiment.

Adam Schlesinger

Your job as a producer is to make suggestions without putting your ego in front of everything else. Also, I think you want to focus on that artist's best qualities and really highlight them.

Adam Schlesinger

Either I need an assignment with a strict deadline - like something for a movie or a TV show or whatever - or else I need to create a made-up deadline for myself for my own records. Otherwise, I don't write anything.

Adam Schlesinger

I don't ever feel like I'm being an actor.

Adam Schlesinger

The nature of the music business is such that it's better to have a few chances for some things to be successful than just one, and that's kind of been my attitude all along.

Adam Schlesinger

The truth is that I don't work any harder than anyone else in the world. I don't work 18-hour days. I don't stay up until 4 in the morning trying to finish a line.

Adam Schlesinger

I tend to write songs that are about something pretty specific. A lot of them tell some kind of little made-up story.

Adam Schlesinger

Most of the jobs I've gotten are from people calling me. I don't actively solicit a lot of work like that, but maybe I should.

Adam Schlesinger