I don't want to name any names, but I've worked on television shows where there's a guy writing for my generation who's like 60 - and it doesn't work.
There's all these people involved, and it becomes this huge machine - it stops being just me making my own little songs for myself, or for the world. And it's hard to stop the machine. If you want to take time to write a record, they're like, "OK, tour through March, April, and June, then you can take a few weeks off to record in July before getting back on the road for the European festival circuit." After a while, I had to put my foot down.
The music starts as being way separate from the lyrics, and I write - I have notebooks that I fill with drawings and just words, and stuff that I've written.
I try to write three jokes every day. I don't sit down and write them, it's just things that pop into my head. Then I'll go watch it fail onstage that night.
When I do stand-up for a long time, I'll get burned out, then I'll get an acting gig. For me, the grass is always greener. I'd like to do a mixture of all of it. My goal is just to do small movies that I've written. That's what I'm trying to do now, just write smaller movies.
I think I spent more time on the mellotron than on any other instrument in the studio, and it got to the point where I was like, "Well, you can't write an entire album on this instrument." But maybe I would!
I have tried to write soundtracks, and the main problem with those was that the directors often had in their minds a much stronger sense of what they wanted to hear, than what I was willing to give them, and I guess there was no way to say, "Well why don't you write your scene around my music?" Because that's just cocky and awful.
If every element of the song doesn't come within the first hour of writing, then you're never going to get it - if that makes sense. It's kind of like you need to be in a mental state where everything is so reactionary that you don't double-think anything, and so if it's not immediate then it's probably not going to happen at all, and you should probably toss the song.
I released that side of things really as kind of an introduction to where I came from musically, back in the day when all I had was a keyboard, a drum machine, and a four-track. So I was doing these little synth-pop ditties, and it's how I learned to write.
The way Jacques Brel writes a story, getting into the character, bringing out all his faults and qualities in the same song.... Not that I could ever write in such an epic way, but it really is a different way to go about writing lyrics...and I find that quite inspiring.
I tried to go to community college for a while, and it's a funny story. I walked into the English class on the first day, and they told us to write about what we did over the summer. I can't remember exactly, but I think I walked out exactly at that point and went to the office to ask for my money back.
I didn't realize how different our band's senses of melody actually were. I would write a part that just made perfect sense to me, but for them, it was mind-boggling. Likewise, they could play stuff with relative ease that I never could have. If there was something lost in translation melodically, it wouldn't work at all - we'd just be 17 people in a giant room staring awkwardly at each other. When that happened, I'd go home, figure out what was wrong, fix it, and then return to smooth sailing.
It's funny because you do often read in recounts of very famous albums, people tend to focus on mistakes in really positive ways, and there's certain mistakes of my own that I always do find on every record that I needed to accept. I find it really interesting to talk about. I always write songs at the wrong tempos, and I have to learn to accept that a little bit.
I mean the reason that I started writing close to home, "Santa Fe," et cetera, was a kind of looking back on past events. I don't know, it's just some of the dark spaces I've been. And it feels like with a music career and whatnot, I've been able to crawl out of those places. So it's interesting to look back on them and try to hold on to the feeling of what you went through.
I could see why someone would want to make a website about me, and my quotes. They are all gold. How many people have written, directed AND starred in their own movies. I just don't know why they would want to put words into my mouth, I mean I did write, direct AND star in a critically acclaimed movie.
People still make New Year's resolutions? Wow. I figured those were pointless once I perfected myself by directing, writing, and acting in Garden State. I guess it makes sense, though. It gives people a chance to hope that they can become as great as me someday.
Dude, writing, acting and directing are such easy jobs. But to do them all as awesomely as Zach Braff does, well that... that's something.
Somebody approached me about writing a biography on me, I told them they were too late.
In my opinion, one of the biggest drawbacks about Sergio Leone films are the scores composed by Ennio Morricone. If [Leone] were as talented as I am, he would have made mixtapes for his movies instead of letting some schmuck write the soundtracks for him. But then if he were as talented as I am, he'd be Zach Braff. And have his own Grammy.
I didn't necessarily have a total idea when I was writing the movie of where everything was going. I just wanted to have really realistic dialogue and write like people I knew talked. I tried to keep it very real.
I did theater for a few years while I was in New York, but it was tough having to perform scripts worse than what I knew I could write.
Turning water to wine? I mean c'mon, that's stupid. They should have let me write the bible.
I really write emotionally so whatever mood I'm in, or if a chord hits me a certain way that's what I'll go off of.
I wouldn't just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.
I've been doing musical theater since I was a kid. And look for a CD from me in the future. I want to write all the songs!
