I'm definitely not a laptop/midi/abelton guy. But there is a lot of music I like. I really like Bach organ music. I really like Chopin piano music. I really like Wendy Carlo's electronic music. I really like Miles Davis and John Mclaughlin jazz style. So I'm not only an old-school rocker, but I have to admit that I'm going to be listening to The Doors, Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and Bob Dylan many times a week.
Gordon RaphaelMusic is very personal. It is not objective. We're not talking about how tight they were. How famous they are. How rich they are. For me it's like food. You taste it, and you either love it, or you think it's boring, or it tastes bad, which is three reactions I have with music, just like food, it's very personal.
Gordon RaphaelI go shopping for jeans, and they're playing shitty music in the store, I just leave. I can't be around music that I hate.
Gordon RaphaelI don't get a lot of big offers. Never have in my career. For some reason, record labels don't call me, famous bands don't call me, only kids in rock bands. I don't know why, and I don't worry about it. I would worry about it if I wasn't working, if I was unemployed.
Gordon RaphaelThere was a time when my taste in music was mainstream, for example - people like Jimi Hendrix - who I really based a lot of my inspiration on, was the most popular entertainer of his day. He was really number one. And bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles are really number one bands. But those days are very much done. I can't say that if I listen to the number one artist now that I get excited.
Gordon RaphaelThe music I make is very underground-sounding, it doesn't sound like it goes into the charts. It doesn't sound like it's trying to fit into today's style. So I think I have already a vibrating tool to an art form that isn't the mainstream. I'm very outside of the mainstream in my taste of music.
Gordon Raphael