Name: Ty Segall

Nationality: American
Occupation: Composer, songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, producer
Current release: Ty Segall's new album Love Rudiments is out August 30th 2024 via Drag City.
 
If you enjoyed these thoughts by Ty Segall and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram.

The following thoughts about various aspects of his work are sourced from several interviews Ty Segall has given over the years. For a deeper dive, follow the links to the full versions.



Beginnings, Creativity & Inspiration

"When I was 11 or 12, a neighbor across the street from me was moving. She knew I was into music and said, "I’ve got something for you." She came over with a stack of like 30 LPs — Alice Cooper, the first four Black Sabbath records, AC/DC, Tommy by the Who, David Bowie’s Low, which I didn’t understand at the time. That was super formative for me.

Then I got into the Kinks and more ’60s stuff — the [garage-rock compilations] Nuggets and Back From the Grave. You start to put the pieces together, chase down where it all came from."
From: Tidal



"Technically [my first guitar] was a bass guitar and I was learning Black Sabbath and Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin songs on it. I think I just wanted one for my birthday.

Yeah, I was 12 and when I was 13 I asked for a guitar because I wanted to play Black Flag songs. That was really the band that made me want to play guitar was Black Flag."
From: do512

"When I was a kid, my inspiration for playing music came out of not knowing how long I’d be able to do it or if opportunities would dry up. For example, two labels want to put out two albums of mine, and I make those two albums, and it ends up becoming the thing you do.

I want to try to make different records all over the place whenever the opportunities to do so happen. I think the only real difference between me and other musicians is that I tend to not really pay attention to the release schedule of albums."
From: New Noise Magazine

"Inspiration just comes from everything, I have no idea where and how. I do feel that I’m influenced by a conversation that I had at a bar, or a drive I had where I’m on the phone to a friend, or waiting at a bus stop and you see someone talking to somebody else, or whatever your daily experience is."
From: Beat

"I’ve always been interested in the brain and human processes—things like human motivation and philosophy. As a kid I was pretty obsessed with existentialism and nihilism and all kinds of philosophical questions. It still drives a lot of my questions about life and what I want to get out of it."
From: Cool Hunting

"Every song on our first record had the world ‘girl’ in it – every one. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I didn’t know what was up. It was all just a fake 17-year-old thing. That’s why I was like, ‘Wow, I’m a scumbag. This isn’t right. I don’t know what love is. I can’t sing about it. I never want to do that again. When you die, all you have are your decisions and the people you love and the places you’ve been. You don’t have your fucking car and your fucking job. You just have your experiences.

That’s why I love making music because when I die, there’s a song that’s goin’ to be on a record that someone’s goin’ to have somewhere. That’s cool to me; not my fucking shoes. This is my opportunity to say something, to affect people, and it’s way better than working at a clothing store …"
From: Cian Traynor

Motivations for Making Records

"I think that half of the time, I’m reacting to whatever album I made prior. There’s always a bit of a reaction to the last album I’ve made, sometimes you just kind of make a bunch of songs ,and then you take a step back and go, "Oh, there’s a story here." I do love when a record is unified by a single idea.

When I was younger, I was kind of obsessed with the idea of making the album that would be "My Best Album." That feeling has gotten in the way a couple of times, where instead of making the most fun or satisfying creative choices, I tried to do things that I would help that album fit into boxes so that other people would like it.

So, nowadays, I really enjoy making albums that don’t fit into any one genre or box. I make music for myself now, fully, and I hope that people enjoy it."
From: Interview Magazine

"All I could ever want when making a record is for someone to have a personal kind of relationship to it that brings their own meaning to different songs and develops a relationship. That’s whatever it is for any given person, whatever their personal experience is and that’s kind of my favorite thing about records."
From: Dig Boston

"I tend to make records that don’t play ball. It’s very cool if people end up liking them at all. It’s fun too if people get to test their limits: "OK, you’re into this pop song. Check out this fucked-up song. Are you still into it?" I have to make sure I’m having a good time.

You can’t follow a trail if something is successful. That’s not right. I try not to pay attention to how things hit — at least not too much."
From: Tidal

Songwriting

"I do like to have everything set up. Right now, I have my drums miked up and ready to go. If I’m in the middle of a project, I’m usually pretty obsessive — listening to the demos; writing more; going, going, going until it’s done. And when a thing is done, I tend not to write for a bit — two months, four months. It depends on the vibe."
From: Tidal

"If I’m trying something and it’s not working then there’s no point. It’s gonna suck. I know that about myself. I don’t need to like do that as a routine because I don’t believe that for myself a routine songwriting method is good. I think a non-routine songwriting thing is way better because it makes it diverse and interesting. And especially when you’re working with rock ‘n’ roll songs it’s hard to sound unique these days because it’s been done for so long. So any kind of weirdness you can throw in is always a good thing."
From: Entertainment Weekly

„I don’t think I’ve ever been a super perfectionist… although I want to. An album like Forever Changes is a great example of why you should aspire to be perfect, but then there are those Syd Barrett records which kind of illustrate why you should just go in there and be a freak and it will be great. I’m more in that camp, I think.

If you’re overly precious about something you’ll kill it. Also, the meaning of things doesn’t stop after you make it, the meaning continues on forever, so if you have an open mind in that sense, too, it’ll be better. I think records are better if you hold your cards a little farther away from your chest."

The best version of it is the total stream of consciousness, no filter version. Whether it’s just sounds and noises, or maybe random words that I later pick through, or I just strum and sing words. That’s the best version for me. Then I go through and I tweak stuff.

Sitting down and trying to write words before music has never worked for me. The words need to sound good when I sing them and it’s like I can only write them by singing them. It’s weird. I’ve had this discussion with a lot of my songwriter friends where a lot of them are like, "I think that’s one of your best traits, because you know what sounds good." I’m like, "Yeah, but then I can’t always say what I want to say. Sometimes the words I want to say just don’t sound right in a song."

It’s this weird thing where you have to find the middle ground."
From: The Creative Independent

"Collaboration is seriously, like, the best thing ever. If I had to make music only by myself, I wouldn’t really enjoy what I do. There’s real creative fulfillment that comes from making work by yourself, but the coolest part about collaborating is that you create something that you could never have imagined beforehand."
From: Interview Magazine

Arranging & Mixing

"I think of drums sometimes as like singing, where I can almost sing the drum part. In my mind, it's almost like each drum is a different part of the of singing a song. It's an odd way to describe it, but that's kind of how I write the drums, as I'm like singing the beats."
From: Associated Press (Youtube)

"I'm kind of an obsessive person when it comes to track order. That's like, to me, kind of the whole trick to making a record, and I've been obsessed with it.

I got more and more into it the more stuff I made, but it's a pretty essential part of making a record, and I'm constantly working on the track order when I'm writing, and it's constantly changing. And that really kind of dictates if a song is going to make it or not. There will be a good song maybe that is cool, but if it doesn't fit in the track order then it doesn't go on the record, you know?

So to me, it's a really important puzzle. And it’s cool! You can present a record in different ways, depending on the track order. It's very, very interesting."
From: Radio Milwaukee

"It’s great to be in a studio and to witness other people’s process. I enjoy being just being the hands that someone else wants me to be. There are projects where I just hit record, or I just mix it, and I’m out. It’s really fun because then I get to focus on pure sound, and method, the actual craft of recording things, and EQing, and mixing.

Mixing is maybe my favorite thing. I feel like mixing is an instrument of its own. I feel just as strong about mixing something as I do about writing a song. To me they are deeply connected to the point where you can’t separate them. I have to mix all my own stuff, or at least be in there dictating moves while someone else does it."From: The Creative Independent