Steve Swallow Quotes

Producing is a great deal more stressful than playing for me, and for this reason I've been doing less of it lately. But it's a service I like to perform. I certainly see producing as a service to the artist who's asked for help. What the producer does is entirely a response to what the artist needs. It can be very gratifying work. The trick is to do as little as possible, only what the artist can't or won't do for himself.

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The Beatles seem to me to be very much of their time (although I realize they do enjoy a remarkable enduring popularity). But I, and most of my friends with whom I've discussed this, associate them strongly with the sixties, and with the intense societal changes of that time.

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I don't meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.

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As for the Beatles: I was very taken by them during their brief career. I was impressed most by the quality of their songwriting, and by George Martin's production. But their importance to me faded fairly quickly after they broke up, as my interests shifted. I think in the end I was much more decisively influenced by some of their influences, most particularly Motown.

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I go about composing like a factory worker. I punch in. I believe it's written somewhere Steve Swallow has to sit uneasily at the piano for ten hours before receiving his next idea, so I sit there as patiently as possible. Eventually, an idea always comes, and then the rest is science.

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