M. Ward Quotes

There's a relationship between music and spirituality and inspiration and to a certain extent improvisation that draws me in, because I don't totally understand it. I know that those relationships have been telling me, since I started making records, where to go. What to write down.

I get annoyed with movies or books, songs or records that deliberately try to make you feel a certain way.

I learned a long time ago that fame and money is not a ticket to happiness.

It's no fun for me to cover a song and produce it the exact same way as it already exists. When I hear that happening, I have to say, 'What's the point?'

I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.

I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog. I had fun trying to duplicate what I was hearing on these records, only using the instruments I had at hand - an acoustic guitar, and that's all. It was endlessly amusing to me to try to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney's harmonies using the guitar.

As a producer, I like to bring in unexpected voices, unexpected musicians, like Watt and Joey Spampinato of NRBQ.

I do watch 'American Idol' sometimes. It's not really that pleasurable ... I take that back. It is the epitome of a guilty pleasure. Sometimes there's some good singers on that show.

The way that I'm working now is basically the way I've been working since I was a kid: Find the greatest artist in whatever you do, and rip them off with respect. I think there's a big difference between ripping off with respect and ripping off in disrespect.

It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.

The South of France is one of my favorite places in the world.

When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas. Eventually, that process of using my voice to bring ideas across became more complicated, and I felt I could use it more as an expressive tool.

The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.

It might be a meaningless moment, but those sparks that ignite the song ... It's mystical maybe, those magic moments. And to make music for a living, to perform these songs over and over, you have to safeguard those sparks. If you can do that, they'll last a lot longer ...

When I was about 15, I picked up the guitar and learned how to play by going through Beatles chords books. I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog.

Try to take your vision and ego as far away from the song as possible. Give as much respect as you can to the song and the initial inspiration.

I don't like the way recording to digital sounds. Most of the time, when I'm recording to two-inch tape, I still have a romantic vision of how songs sounded coming out of the radio when I was younger, and how they sounded coming out of my little four-track cassette player.

I don't really watch TV series because I don't want to get hooked on them and have them suck up all my time.

I like using concrete imagery, but I don't feel that's what it's about. It's a combination of concrete and abstract to take the listener somewhere they know better than you. That's true for music, seeing a painting, watching a movie ... it's all some kind of an escape.

I believe in working with songs that have personal value for me.

I've never used the word jamming. It's a matter of finding a great song and learning the chords, then slightly altering the vocal melody, and matching a classic chord progression with another chord progression.

I got into one Metallica record. That was about it. I never got into AC/DC or Black Sabbath or any of that. I was interested in the side of heavy metal that had interesting guitar ideas, but that was a very short-lived thing.

I just want the songs to have the staying power as my favorite songs. If you listen to any Hank Williams song, when you're in a good mood, it's going to put you in a better mood. If you happen to be bummed-out, you're going to feel maybe a little more bummed-out and better at the same time. At any time in my life, his music has had meaning and value to me. If a song can shape-shift in that way, that's a sign of success.

I had the naive, simplistic idea that producers and writers and artists of the time helped in a minuscule way to change the mind-set of America.

When I started to take literature and poetry classes, I just started to get inspired by these new incredible works of art that I had never seen or heard of before. I wrote a lot of bad high-school poetry, just like pretty much everyone did, I think, at some point. For me, the inspiration never really stopped.

I'm somebody who gets a lot of inspiration from dreams.

If you think of the way Howlin' Wolf made records, you get the feeling there wasn't a production manager onsite, or a publicist having his say on how he should sing the songs. When you listen to his records, you feel like you're tapping into his voice.

There's at least one fist bump every interview.

I love the idea that I planned my career. I did not. It started out by getting invitations from artists that I really love and respect, to share a stage ... I've been very lucky in that I haven't had to create a five-year plan. It's evolved.

My favorite recordings are the ones that feel like there were no middlemen in the creation. That's the biggest problem with most films and records being made today - too many people involved. I think it dilutes the artist's intent and inspiration.

The songwriting style, to me, is superior ... there was a certain amount of joy in it, no matter how sad the song is. You get joy in listening to these Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison sad lyrics. I'm attracted to songs that have balance between the darks and the lights and giving them all equal opportunity.

If I'm writing ... even a piece of a song ... I write it down. If it still resonates six months down the line, a year, even five, those are the ones you put in your bag and you take to the studio. You come to realize, the ones that don't make it, they were only meant to live for that moment in your notebook or on the 4-track-and plenty of songs never get any farther than the 4-track.

I treat the act of making a record very much like working in a laboratory, experimenting with sounds and ideas ... Whoever chooses to latch onto it, great; whoever doesn't, that's fine, too. The reaction always pales in comparison to the weight of the act of production.

Certain things you have to stumble on to. They can't be preprogrammed.

My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.

I'm somebody who doesn't feel the need to be in the driver's seat all the time. I appreciate the perspective of being in the passenger's seat sometimes, and I feel fortunate for that because I've learned a lot from that perspective.