There are two ways to wake up. You can wake up thinking about what you know, or you wake up thinking and saying ‘What can I learn?.’ That’s a very different approach.
I collect art books. I have hundreds and hundreds of them and they get me to start hearing things. Sometimes people look at them, but I find that visual art gets me listening, gets me hearing things.
There are things that I refuse to deal with except through my music… because I don’t trust humanity that much, and I don’t know if I trust me that much. But I trust the songs.
I used to get really pissed off that my life was so dictated by when this Jesus guy was born and when he was dying every year. I felt really resentful that I couldn’t get on with my own life because I was so busy with his.
There’s a richness to the old works if you look before the 1950s. The chord progressions and the language was more complicated, especially in the jazz and classical world.
It’s been a thrilling journey – I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity – it’s a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to … ride and don’t let go and you will be fine.
