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" So I don't think I'm gonna pull my head into my shell just because a bunch of people start acting like idiots. "
Todd Rundgren
Like
Start
Acting
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" I don't use any real vintage hardware any longer. That's always been the object as far as gaining control of the studio environment, going back to when I built my first studio, Secret Sound, in New York City. The whole point was to not have to pay studio bills anymore and not be looking at the clock. "
Todd Rundgren
Control
New York
Looking
" We bought property after Iniki in '92. I figured we'd never find better bargains. As it turned out, we didn't get a bargain, but we did find the spot we wanted to live on. It actually took a couple years to secure that spot. Then, after we moved, it took over 10 years to start construction on the house. It's still a work in progress. "
Todd Rundgren
Construction
Work
Progress
" 'Something/Anything?' was kind of a different record, since I'm playing everything myself. A lot of the songs on there have a particular kind of instrumentation that is much like a guitar quartet, and in some ways, it's an exceptional song on that record because so much of the writing on 'Something/Anything?' is piano-oriented. "
Todd Rundgren
Writing
Song
Myself
" I was lucky enough to grow up in an era when radio was less formatted. It was really special. You could hear a jazz song then a pop song then a show tune then some jazz. Basically, whatever the DJ felt like playing, he would play. He was educating you and exposing you to things you would never hear otherwise. "
Todd Rundgren
Grow
Song
You
" My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs. "
Todd Rundgren
Guitar
Blues
Heroes
" When you come to a place like Kauai, you don't go for a high tech world. "
Todd Rundgren
Like
Go
High
" Because of the way the record business has kind of stumbled and disintegrated, in a way, you're as likely to sell records at your merch table at your gigs as you are to sell them in a regular record outlet or even online. "
Todd Rundgren
You
Table
Business
" I never look for music by genre. I look for an artist who puts a dependable trademark on things. Like Elvis Costello - he's a great songwriter who presents his songs in a number of contexts. I feel the same about my own music. "
Todd Rundgren
Great
Feel
Artist
" When I got out of the Nazz, I had it in my mind that simply to be eclectic was an important aspect of making music. It was something that I derived from The Beatles. "
Todd Rundgren
Out
Got
Important
" I got it into my head that I had somewhat neglected the guitar, and then I did a record called 'Arena,' and it was not a particularly bad record - it wasn't a bad record at all, but it was built around a certain concept, which is a guitar quartet, with a little bit of augmentation here and there. "
Todd Rundgren
Bad
Here
Little
" I don't have a long history of hit singles of my own. I had a few, and I had a little hot streak in the '70s, but I've had a lot of success producing other people. "
Todd Rundgren
Own
History
Success
" And so it's inescapable and people who proclaim scrupulous honesty can only proclaim that if they don't examine closely the things they believe. "
Todd Rundgren
Believe
Honesty
People
" I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going. "
Todd Rundgren
Done
You
Not Knowing
" The New York Dolls did not think of themselves as punk rock. There was no such term at the time. They were just another band in what was called the New York scene. "
Todd Rundgren
Time
Band
New
" I write in a very strange way. Things are very fragmentary for a very long time, and then they come together very quickly near the end of the process. "
Todd Rundgren
Long
Together
Process
" Singles needed to come back. And what I tried to do in my online experiment was to change the rules for myself and make available at a more regular pace the fruits of my labour, for people who decided they wanted to support my recordings. "
Todd Rundgren
People
Myself
Change
" Sometimes being a musician has little to do with viability and everything to do with survivability. Many musicians start out great, and they wind up out of the business in 10 years. "
Todd Rundgren
Business
Musicians
Great
" I've got billions of sparrows to worry about as well as everything else'. So there's the whole idea that whatever it is that you believe, it can never be valid unless you have some consensus reality demonstration. "
Todd Rundgren
Reality
Believe
Got
" When I got out of high school, I joined a local blues band in Philadelphia - Woody's Truck Stop. "
Todd Rundgren
School
Blues
Band
" That's what I like about Frank Ocean or Bon Iver - they try to capture a feeling in the most sincere way. "
Todd Rundgren
Capture
Way
Like
" If all you have is faith, then you never actually know anything. "
Todd Rundgren
Then
Anything
Faith
" Exploitation was rampant before statehood, and various factions actively tried to eradicate the roots of Hawaiian culture in the process of converting the natives to European religious beliefs. Some of the results can never be undone. We try to honor what is left. "
Todd Rundgren
Honor
Process
Roots
" All it takes to become president is money and a certain kind of power. Being president is the first thing I can shoot for, not the highest. It may come to a point where people take rock and roll musicians more seriously than they take politicians. It may eventually turn out that musicians have more credibility. "
Todd Rundgren
Power
People
Money
" The Toddstock thing is the closest thing, I have to say, a Grateful Dead sort of thing where it all lapses over from the formality of a concert into more of a lifestyle thing. "
Todd Rundgren
Grateful
Dead
Lifestyle
" There's only one band that could ever even pretend to assume the mantle of what the Beatles did, who have been so pre-eminent and world-dominating that they could effect a paradigm shift in the culture, who have been willing to leverage their success into musical change, and that is U2 - regardless of what the result of that is. "
Todd Rundgren
Culture
Success
Band
" People get comfort from music. They get joy from it and understanding from it, and most of all, the average person can't do without it in some sense. "
Todd Rundgren
Joy
People
Music
" People have always said that I could have been a highly successful pop artist, if only that were my intention. It never was. My original intention was to be a kind of behind-the-scenes participant in music, to just be a record producer and engineer. And I made a record for myself just so I could have an outlet for my musical ideas. "
Todd Rundgren
Music
People
Artist
" Most people didn't have the bandwidth to download whole albums. And so it brought back this cherry picking idea that the audience would focus on certain songs and possibly be the impetus behind what eventually got on AM radio: the single or whatever. "
Todd Rundgren
Audience
Back
Cherry
" It was always remarkable to me how ignorant the labels were of the listening habits of their own customers, and how obstinate they were in denying those habits and then trying to essentially alter those habits instead of retooling their business to adapt to them. "
Todd Rundgren
Trying
Adapt
Business
" I think there are always people who, when they get the bug to play an instrument, they want to get as good as they can with it rather than just be simply adequate at it. You run into them every once in a while - some kid who wants to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan, for whatever reason, and plays exactly like him. "
Todd Rundgren
Think
You
Play