You can't do anything interesting with cutting-edge technology except not make it cutting-edge.

A lot of the so-called systems composers have this thing that the system is always right. You don't fiddle with it at all. Well, I don't think that. I think the system is as right as you judge it to be. If for some reason you don't like a bit of it you must trust your intuition on that. I don't take a doctrinaire approach to systems.

I'm fascinated by musicians who don't completely understand their territory; that's when you do your best work.

The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface.

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of 'what else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?'

I don't live in the past at all; I'm always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.