You find your preferred resolutions and harmonic intervals and what-have-yous, and then you either keep writing the same thing until everybody is as bored with your songs as you are, or you try with all your might to get out of those patterns. This is what a lot of the work is all about.

Bent Saether

Categorized in : Song Writing Bored

We went from being thought of and talked about as "a band that plays a so-and-so style of music" (a grunge band, a stoner band, etc) to "a band that plays music with a certain sensibility or style to it". I'm not able to see quite what that is, but it's there and some people like it a lot.

style play people

We've known each other [in Motorpsycho ] since 1985 or '86, are really different as personalities, and yet have actually never disagreed to any degree. We are really complimentary as musicians and songwriters too, and come from two total opposites in our approaches.

personality opposites two

A lot of ideas get re-used and made part of new songs if the first version didn't cut the mustard, and the stuff that gets left off usually contained the germ of something good but failed to reach a satisfactory state by the recording stage.

cutting song ideas

Generally there are always a few things that get left off for some reason or other, although the criteria for inclusion vary from project to project.

criteria projects reason

I always have problems with seeing how our new stuff relates to our old stuff - I'm better at seeing long lines in other people's music than in my own.

lines long people

I really liked Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls and a couple of others, but with these kinds of movies the best part is the 'talking about it over a beer afterwards' bit - and once is kind of enough.

couple beer talking

It feels like we've grown enough as musicians over the last few years to go new places, and our conceptual and compositional abilities have developed along with it, so we're pushing all the envelopes we can at the same time and it still feels like cutting edge work to us. It seems to resonate with people.

cutting people years

When you've been at it for as long as we have, you go through fallow periods and blooming ones, and you know when you're on a roll and you learn how to keep it rolling for as long as you can.

blooming rolling long

I think this insatiable need to get to know new music is a big part of why it has lasted so long.

insatiable-need long thinking

We've gotten better at shooting down routine material or stuff we feel like we've done better in the past. Getting different people in the band for periods also keeps it from going stale.

stuff people past

We sometimes feel like hamsters on a wheel, covering the same musical ground we did 20 or more years ago.

covering musical years

Sadly, as a songwriter you sooner or later finish developing your musical understanding.

sooner-or-later musical understanding

Where Snah [Hans Magnus Ryan] is a melody and texture man, I am more of a riff, rhythm and concept guy. I am much better than him in certain fields, and he surely wipes the floor with me in others, and we both know it's like that.

texture guy men