| Am I Alone in This? Bill Bottrell in the January 2001 New Settler |
|
|
into writing. That was 1986 or so. Nothing much really happened and I didn't really start writing songs until 1989. This is the genre: write a song to fit it. . . . BILL: It's a terribly unartistic system, manufacturing pop music. And I had come all the way. I was just a kid from the suburbs, and I was thrilled to be in the music industry in any case. As I grew older, I necessarily got more taste and a certain appreciation for lyrics and melody and I just grew out of manufactured pop. -Not to mention that it was a terribly exhausting world to function in. And so I dropped out in 1990 and built my own studio and vowed to work only with marginalized artists. And it was extremely gratifying. -The problem being, some of those marginalized artists became big stars. |
Like Sheryl Crow. Had you put the words in her mouth? BILL: I put many of the words in her mouth, and the melodies. And she had plenty of her own, too: she is very talented. But she went from that mindset of being a hungry artist to being a big superstar. Hence, I did not want to work with her on her second album and a lot was made of that. I was a rebel in LA. Certainly during the early nineties. I had my own system. I was against their economics, their oppressive way of dealing with people's art and people. I stated so in forums and speeches. I must have pushed some buttons, because Billboard Magazine ended up writing a two-week editorial on the inside front cover about me and my cohorts, the theme being ingratitude. They thought |