Washed Out

“I was gonna work in a university, but no one was hiring.”

“I'm without a doubt a producer first. The lyrics happen towards the tail-end of the process, mainly because they're more stream-of-consciousness. It's very rare that I'm going to tell a really concrete story.”

“I'm not the most technical producer, so the weird mixes and blown-out sound happen naturally.”

“I definitely enjoy my time by myself - and that's kind of the weird thing about touring; you're kind of constantly surrounded by people - but I actually do enjoy going out and doing things and being around people.”

“The thing that's good about music-making software like the DAW-kinda systems is that they're all generally the same; the kind of interface is normally laid out in a similar way. Depending on the program, the sounds might be quite different, but they tend to all have a drum machine or synthesizer or a sampler.”

“The way I work is by infinitely playing a very simple loop over and over, and then I start layering things.”

“My first big influences were more hip-hop based - people like DJ Shadow and Four Tet.”

“Texture is very important. Just the feel of everything. It's not always about recording everything in pristine quality and having everything mixed where it's absolutely perfect. It's more about a vibe.”

“I'm entirely self-taught, which I think is both a blessing and a curse.”

“I've always written pop songs. I tend to take inspiration from more experimental genres, like ambient music, but at the root of the song, it's verse-chorus-verse.”

“I do try to structure everything in a way that's very much like a pop song. I try to keep the arrangements really simple, just to make everything essential.”

“The way that I sing is very mumbled-together, and so I guess I'm kind of stuck with it now.”

“I normally start at the computer with something really simple like a four-bar loop of a drum sample or a bass line. And then I just start adding layers of synthesizers.”

“I don't think I would change anything. I think we've done a fairly good job of remaining sane and making the right decisions.”

“I try to stay on a pretty normal schedule of nine-to-five.”

“Any musician - I would say 99% of musicians - needs some help along the way. Most people, even if they're self-produced, have someone else mix it, or they'll have someone else master the record. Inevitably, it's like somebody else's personality being put into your art.”

“I lived in a neighborhood where there weren't many kids. I had a couple sisters, but I was very much a loner. Whatever film I had seen that day or that week, I would completely find myself in that world.”

“There are certain sounds that have a loaded past. Like the sound of a harp, if you go back to old movies, represents a dream sequence; it transports you there.”

“When you work this intensely on something, the recording process becomes a bit like cabin fever. I shut everything out and, for a while, I totally lost perspective. To an outsider, I imagine the whole recording process sounds like torture.”

“A lot of the early Washed Out material was done on a couple of synthesizers that did most of the work, but that's the great thing about synths - you can recreate sounds or make an entire record with just one piece of gear.”