Jon Hopkins Quotes

Jon Hopkins

Profession : Musician

Birth : August 15, 1979

I just love switching stuff off and going for a run, or sitting down and eating cake.

Jon Hopkins

The process of repeating a rhythm while it gently evolves has an incredible effect on the brain, or on mine anyway.

Jon Hopkins

When I was 23, I felt like I was further back than when I was 21. After two solo albums for this small indie label Just Music, they'd gotten no real profile. So I kind of turned away from the solo thing a bit.

Jon Hopkins

I'm very impulsive and I always had a belief in instinct leading the way.

Jon Hopkins

I always make sure there's something for the audience to connect to, in terms of my movements relating to the sounds being heard.

Jon Hopkins

Sometimes I think elements of 'Open Eye Signal' are better live. I do this really crazy stuff at the end, but I don't know if it'd translate well into recording. It would probably sound a bit too extreme.

Jon Hopkins

You don't make this kind of music expecting to have to do TV press and stuff like that. I don't mind doing it, but it's a fairly underground type of music. You do it for the love of the music more than being a star or anything.

Jon Hopkins

What kind of music keeps its relevance? That's why I purposely try and avoid any particularly current trends in electronic music. I do actively stay away from the most popular rhythms of the moment. In six weeks' time, those will sound out-of-date.

Jon Hopkins

You can't allow your creative sessions to be dominated by miniscule editing processes.

Jon Hopkins

Well, I don't really use MIDI that much. But I do record audio around me a lot, and just layer it up and see what effect it has, without any aforethought.

Jon Hopkins

If I've made something really serene... well, if everything is like that, it's like having too much icing on your cake. You need something else under it, some kind of grounding. It's like if you're making a film, you can't have only happy moments, or else they become meaningless.

Jon Hopkins

I don't have a huge amount of gear, but on the software side, I have a number of plug-in chains that act as abstracted versions of real instruments.

Jon Hopkins

I really don't use that much stuff. I think it's good to know a few pieces of equipment very well, rather than learn new ones every time. I think it distracts from the writing process.

Jon Hopkins

Well, I like the idea of seeing every piece of music as fluid. I see the tracks as places almost, structures you can inhabit and explore.

Jon Hopkins

I did classical music when I was a teenager, but the experience of performing a classical concert felt too frighteningly pristine for me to continue with it.

Jon Hopkins

My first ever show in America was opening for Coldplay at Madison Square Garden. Nobody in that audience could have known who I was. It was almost like it was an accident, like I was in someone else's dream.

Jon Hopkins

A lot of my creative ideas begin in the pub, talking through possibilities with collaborators.

Jon Hopkins

I've always been obsessed with contrast in records, and using harsher elements to make the quieter ones more powerful.

Jon Hopkins

Ever since I got a job in Imogen Heap's touring band when I was 17, there have been moments in my career that I can't quite believe really happened.

Jon Hopkins

I have always been interested in incorporating real places into the music I make. Bringing the outside into the controlled world of recorded sound just gives life and physicality.

Jon Hopkins