SPIN

Why does writing music make Fiona Apple think of going to the bathroom? How did Pearl Jam inspire Julian Casablancas to pick up a mic? What pissed off Karen O so much that she felt compelled to form the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

In his new book and documentary, Music, Andrew Zuckerman gets some of rock's most interesting stars to write long-form essays about their creative process, their earliest musical memories, and why rock 'n' roll is more important than ever.

The book (out November 1 from Abrams) is illustrated with striking photos of everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Sinéad O'Connor to Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig.

"My intention is to create a neutral playing field," says Zuckerman. "No one's photographed in a mansion or on a stage. There's no environment. I'm interested in the essential portrait." Click through to see a selection of images from the book and head here to see the trailer for the movie.(Pictured above: Julian Casablancas, Fiona Apple, Jim James, Karen O -- clockwise from top left)

"Even though the process [of making music] can be meticulous, the approach should be simple. I just started doing things I liked; you know, sing along. I remember recording myself doing a Pearl Jam song and just thinking, 'This is great.' And then listening back and thinking, 'Oh my God, I really can’t sing.' One step at a time."

"There’s a real heavy atmosphere of apathy in New York. That was in the air when we started. So a lot of why we started was just to try and shake things up, to get people to feel something. Just to have fun again, because New York was a lot of people standing around with their arms crossed, bobbing their heads if they felt something. We were like, 'Fuck that, we’re gonna get people to go fucking nuts.'"

"Music, when I’m singing or fronting, it’s definitely not coming from me, it’s coming through me, like the way if water has to go through a rusty pipe it comes out a different color. On the way through, I get some of my bits in."

"I subscribe to the theory that art is made to be broken and if I wanted to play a song backwards at half speed, I believe, as the auteur, that’s my right. But not everybody agrees with my right, which is kind of a funny thing."

"You never know when an idea’s gonna come to you. I’ve tried not to have to schedule the creative stuff; but in terms of the creativity that goes on in the studio, we’ve tried to keep business hours — that only lasts so long before we end up being in there every day until three or four a.m."

"I never regretted it [ripping up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live]. Never in a million years. And I mean I had the shit kicked out of me for years, and everyone treated me like a madwoman. But I would do it a million times over."

"When you record, you have to accept the fact that it’s a finite thing and you’re only capturing time for that moment. And it’s always hard to let it go when you’re done but also, at the same time, you have to just let it go and be like, 'See ya later. I’m gonna look back at you five years from now and there’s gonna be some things I like and there’s gonna be some things I don’t like. And there’s gonna be some things I’m embar- rassed about and some things I love.'"

"Not to be gross, but music is sort of a creative mental form of shitting. You keep taking things in and putting them out to make more room to take more nutrients in. Life nutrients: conversations with people, experiences, seasons. Hopefully, though, what you put out isn’t shit."

"I've always seen music as something that broke down barriers. Music could be used to cause wars. Music could be used to bring peace. Music can bring national prides to different people, whether they were racist or not. Music could also make people feel high energy, fantastic things about life, and it also could make you feel sorry and dreadful, and it depends on the different emotions and stages that the music is being played."

"I feel like the best music I’ve ever made is the music I kind of wasn’t present for. Most of the time I don’t really know what I’m doing. Especially recently, it’s more about sonics and getting everything sounding like it has some kind of emotional resonance. And then after that, that’s when you start: after you’ve laid down a foundation, that’s when you start thinking about where it’s coming from. But at the start, it’s not coming from anywhere."

"I just feel that being a writer in any kind of capacity has more to do with just working the muscles. The longer you go without writing, those muscles atrophy a little bit and you become less able to harness a good idea when it comes across your brain. I feel it’s important for me. I’m a songwriter. That’s what I do for a living. So I should try to write songs every day."

"I am a singer, so I feel my position is to set the guitar player up. To me, it’s all about guitars. I’m setting him up and going, 'Ta-da!' and the whole audience is going, 'Fuck, he’s cool.' That’s what turns me on."

"I want to master music like Bruce Lee mastered martial arts."

"Imagine standing outside the Universe and listening to the music it creates! It’s nice to know that we are a part of it."

"I feel like all of my writing, even when I’m writing about something ostensibly outside myself, I look at all of anybody’s writing as being autobiographical. Even science fiction novelists are really writing from their own experience for it to resonate. It has to have a lot of your experience in it. So in that sense it is of you, but then, in order for it to really connect it has to be bigger than you."

"I don’t play an instrument, I don’t really know how to sing. But it’s this thing within me. The bad thing about being me is I’ve got this thing in my head, but I can’t always transcribe it."