I am deep in the cobwebs of a new song development process and it is taking me through endless frustrating tangles. I hope I find my way out. I have two quotes I recently came across to keep me company as I journey through the forest.
As a song writer/producer, these two quotes resonated for various reasons. They are from Dan Reynolds and Wayne Sermon respectively of Imagine Dragons. I'll explain perhaps in a later post why I like them but I will just leave them hanging out there for now:
Question: Are there ever any moments when you guys feel “purist” about things? Like, “no, we absolutely have to have live drums on this, we absolutely have to have a live bass on this?”
Dan: You know, I would say absolutely there's no purism to Imagine Dragons. When we had that notion, when it existed in the first year of creating a record, we immediately threw it out the window. It was like, it will be the death of us. And again, I can only speak for what has worked for us, what is right for us. Our mentality is “is it right for you as an artist?” I think the second you compromise that, then you're in trouble. Then you're not going to have success. I really think success comes from an artist knowing who they are, doing what they love and just doing it no matter what and not thinking about purism or critical voices or anything else.
That’s incredible. I have one last question: if you were to encounter someone who's maybe just starting out pursuing their music career, what would you want to say to them? What kind of advice would you want to give them, if any?
Wayne: I don't know the exact path because things are changing so quickly right now. But all I know is that the people who are destined to do music - and will do music - aren't going to listen to my advice anyway. They're just going to do it. The people who are going to be successful, they're going to do it because they have to do it, not because they want to do it. There's going to be easier ways to make money, I assume. They're going to carve their own path somehow and do it despite established musicians telling them what to do or what not to do. There's just this fire you see in people that are going to do it despite the odds. And I wish them all the best doing that.