Music comes from the same source that life comes from.

It’s like waves flowing all around us.

There is no objectively good or bad music, and there are no intrinsically bad sounds, chords or progressions. For me, I just have to decide what to do with the unprocessed, unedited music that I become uniquely aware of.

Choices

When I hear something, I have a choice to follow the feeling and structure of those waves or not. If I have an extraordinarily beautiful idea and choose to distort it in a way that changes the feel, I believe that’s a mistake. It’s a miss.

I often hear music from others that I wouldn’t make if I could. Not because it’s bad music, I just wouldn’t support the message it carries. That doesn’t keep those songs from selling millions, and it doesn’t mean the songs aren’t good. They’re just not serving a purpose I can support.

I can still support and love the artists, and I can appreciate their art. We all “paint” through the lens of experience , thought, and belief, and another artist’s lens is not my business to judge - mine isn’t perfect.

My business is to take my inner experience and convert that into something that others can hear and experience - it’s a deep form of communication. I want that communication to be as clear and undistorted as possible.

Elaboration is a different story. I don’t always receive music that’s complete, and it certainly doesn’t come with a list of EQ and compressor settings.

My purpose is to convey the best version of the message I possibly can, without distorting its meaning. The core information contained in the wave that reaches me should reach everyone else. That’s my role.

The skills I have as an artist should support that purpose. They are never more important than the feeling of the true original that only I can hear.

See you in the future

Ghost Pepper