M. Ward Quotations

I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.

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.

When I first started making music, it was learning other people's songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 remember when I was 5 or 6 years old, gospel music felt familiar, like I had heard it in the womb or something. A lot of those old gospel songs still give me that feeling, that it's older than time and there's actually music that can tap into a universal subconscious, or whatever word you want to put on it.

I went every Sunday to church when I was growing up, and I think that music had an affect on me before my memory can recall.

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.

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 don't like the way recording to digital sounds.

From a very early age, I started to get really interested in how songs were put to tape. Not just listening to the songs, but the way the songs were recorded.

It was endlessly amusing to me to try to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney's harmonies using the guitar.

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.

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.

Even though someone has died, a piece of their spirit can still be alive. That's an exciting world for me to take music into, or to attempt to do that.

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

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.

When you work on a record for three years, it's a great sense of relief when it is finally out in the world. It just feels good.

Every record turns into whatever the listener gets out of it.

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 get most of my inspiration from older records. Most of the records that I listen to were probably made before I was born, and I was born in the mid-'70s. I don't know why, exactly, I'm drawn to those sounds.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

The production process has a great way of bringing songs to light and that's a big part of it.

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.

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.

When I first started making music, it was learning other peoples songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.

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.

I love the sound of Elmore James, the sound early guitarists like him got just by using minimal means.

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

I have a very strong belief in God.

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.

In order to make a normal-sized record, a singer songwriter should have a couple dozen finished songs. Once they go through the process of production, the ones that scream out at you that they're finished are the ones that make the record.

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.

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...

The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.

It's a hard thing to explain, but the more I arrange for strings, the more I realize the possibilities.

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 find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.

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.

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

My grandparents are from Mexico, so I grew up with great Mexican food.

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

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've worked with just as many talented women as I have talented men, and I feel fortunate enough to have that great balance.

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

I get most of my inspiration from older records and older production styles, and that ends up rearing its head in the records that I make.

There's at least one fist bump every interview.

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

I always prefer other people's interpretations over my own, so I'm not very quick to make explicit what exactly a song or record is about.

One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel - you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time.