Once you free your mind about a concept of music and harmony being correct, you can do whatever you want.
Giorgio Moroder
The disco sound, you must see, is not art or anything so serious.
Unless you use the vocoder the way Daft Punk use it, it is very limited. When they sing it's almost human. It sounds sexy. I just used it as an effect. It wasn't because I was not able to sing; I'm not a great singer, but I had some hits as a singer, too. It's a nice effect.
I had an idea for a technologically advanced luxury watch. I got involved in digital art and neon painting and put on shows of my work.
One of the most interesting things, at least for me, are the soundtracks for 'The Social Network' and 'Drive.' Basically, it's what I did in 'American Gigolo.' I could have done the music for those movies blindfolded. And one of them won an Oscar, and the other is this massive soundtrack.
In film, I was surprised when I first saw the movie 'Drive.' I said, 'Oh, God. It sounds great - I love it. Wow, this could be the soundtrack from 'American Gigolo' or 'Cat People.' But I'm surprised that the director would agree with a composer to write that kind of sound.
'Take My Breath Away' had that interesting bass line, which I hear quite often. It had that terrible change of key, which Terri Nunn hated, but I loved.
Disco is music for dancing, and people will always want to dance.
Dance music doesn't care where you live. It doesn't care who your friends are. It doesn't care how much money you make. It doesn't care if you're 74 or if you are 24 because... 74 is the new 24!
I set a Google Alert for myself, and now I'm seeing people say my music influenced them and how great it is all the time. Sometimes I listen to this stuff that's supposed to be influenced by me, and I can't hear myself in it. But I'd rather they say it than not.
In pop or rock you can make a fast song or a slow one, but in disco there is really just the one rhythm.
I was in Studio 54 one time; it was great. But I'm not a discotheque guy. Sometimes, if I had a new demo, I went to some discotheques to check it out - see how the reactions of the people were. But just to dance, I rarely did that.
Every business is there to make money, and making a record is business. This tends to be forgotten by many.
I love Lady Gaga, Rihanna - all the pop girls like Katy Perry. I think Miley Cyrus is very talented, too. Apart from the visuals, which you may like or not like, but her music is quite good, actually. 'Wrecking Ball' is quite a good song, and she sang it really nicely.
I listen to the group Disclosure; they have great sounds. Maybe not as adventurous as Skrillex. I think the key thing is to have those beautiful sounds... the amazing sounds of Skrillex are almost phenomenal.
Even when disco went out, I could still make hits. Once I had so much success, every idea became concentrated. I had so much confidence. I knew how the bass should sound, what rhythms would work. The tempos I knew: 110 to 120 BPM. I knew they would dance in the clubs in New York or anywhere.
My music was typically continental - nothing like, say, The Beatles.
I am much more happy doing what I know I can do than what I am not sure I could do.
Phil Ramone is very special. Barbra Streisand or Diana Ross... they are the best.
Nowadays you need so much money to be able to launch a new artist, notably in America; you would hardly believe the sums involved.
It is at least 10 times more difficult to get a good synthesiser sound than on an acoustic instrument.
In both pop and disco, the meaning of the lyrics is not too important. I have nothing I feel I particularly want to say.
I would not be happy to do what I do unless I felt that the large audience wanted it.
I think it would be stupid for us to try and tell people who are dancing in a discotheque about the problems of the world. That is the very thing they have come away to avoid.
I have to admit, I do not listen to much rock music.
I don't think there is too much art involved in what I do.
I am reluctant to judge things without being informed.
I am not so complicated or intelligent a composer, nor am I very interested in becoming so. I am much more happy doing what I know I can do than what I am not sure I could do.
I am certainly not racist; I even like the British.
I achieved something specially different with Love To Love You Baby and I Feel Love. These songs will endure.
Disco does work better with black artists or players. They just feel it more.
I like the sounds of EDM; the guys create new sounds, beautiful sounds. The melodies, it's a little less. I like the kind of melodies I did with Donna Summer, or 'Flashdance,' where you have a verse, a chorus - a song setup.
When I'm dead, somebody can write my biography. I wrote a national hymn, an anthem, which I don't want to present to that country. But I have a deal with my wife - when I'm dead, she should offer it, because then I'm safe.
My favorite would be 'Love to Love You' because from zero, I went to Number One. I don't think it's the best song - the best one is probably between 'Flashdance' and 'Take My Breath Away.'
I designed a sports car, the Cizeta-Moroder, with Marcello Gandini from Lamborghini; he did the Countach, of course. The Cizeta cost $600,000, but we could bargain - if a Japanese businessman says he wants it for three, fine.
Now, the DJ becomes a star in itself because of the way he programs the songs with lows and then highs and then slowing it down. The big DJs, like Tiesto and Deadmau5 and all those guys, they are very, very creative.
That big hit 'Get Lucky' is a disco song - not only the melody and the whole concept, but we had one of the great disco guys and one of the best guitarists ever, Nile Rodgers, to play on it. So that's great disco, but a modern disco, because it has great vocoders and synthesizers.
One day. I was putting on a hill in Zurich, and a few hundred yards away, Diana Ross was doing a sound test at an arena for a performance that night of 'Take My Breath Away,' my song with her. That was a very nice game, an incredible feeling.
In the early '80s, my sound - especially that mysterious kind of synthesized sound that was used so much - every relatively cheap TV show eventually had it because it's not expensive. It's just one guy doing the whole soundtrack. So it was overdone.
A producer is always behind the scenes, even more in the movies - nobody sees you. I didn't even meet most of the actors. When I worked on 'Top Gun,' I never met Tom Cruise. You were always in the background.
I had an album out at exactly the same time as 'Love to Love You' called 'Einzelganger,' and it's great, all electronic. I'm using a vocoder, doing all this cut-up stuff on there, but no one knows about it.
I wanted to get into art. I did some neon stuff. I worked in, not computer-generated, but computer manipulation of pictures.
I was involved with a sports car called Cizeta-Moroder, which was the first 16-cylinder car, beautiful. I think we sold about eight cars, and then in '92 the economic crash came, and we had to close the shop.
