Benny Blanco

Always be different; don't follow the rules. Don't do what anyone tells you. Don't use the same sounds as people; don't use the same drums as people. ”

I try to listen to over a hundred different songs a day. I listen to every single thing. If you're just listening to pop music, you're just gonna make pop music. I listen to Adele, Yo Yo Ma, Gucci Mane. ”

I think somewhere along the way I realized, 'O.K., no one's gonna care about a chubby Jewish dude rapping.' I realized I'd be better behind the scenes. ”

I always have a ping-pong table in the studio. If you're with an artist and you notice the situation is going south a little bit, it's like, 'You wanna play ping-pong or foosball?' Or, 'You wanna go grab somethin' to eat?' And then you just like talk to them and relax them and get them comfortable and get yourself comfortable. ”

Basically, any time you have a real life experience, that can be a song. Because no matter how crazy or weird you are, somebody's had an experience just like you, somewhere. ”

I'm not deciding what the artist is going to write about because it's the artist. They're gonna have to sing that song for the rest of their life. When they're old and they're 80 and they have their show in Vegas, they're gonna have to sing that song for the rest of their life. ”

I just want to sound different than everyone else. I don't care if it sounds bad. I just want people to be like, 'Yo, that dude Benny was different.' Even if it sounds awful, at least they can't say, 'Oh well, I've heard that before.' ”

I might be eating something, and the bag opens in a cool way, and I'm like, 'I wanna put that in the song.' ”

When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now,' that never works. Every time that happens, I never write a hit song. ”

I can be at my house sitting there making music alone, and every single time I've ever done that the first thing I do when I'm done, no matter if it's 4 in the morning... I literally just pick up my phone and I call someone. ”