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The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea.

A good film demands its own score, and if you are a musician, your conscience will never allow you to do something mediocre for a good film.

Secondarily, I think films that are driven by music also terrify studios.

I'm my own artist, and I see artists as movies. No one should try to change them for anything. If you don't like it, you just don't follow it. And if you don't like a movie you don't watch it. Watch another movie.

Somebody might get criticized for doing some movie that totally sucks, then turn around and be incredible. Every actor goes through that, not just musicians who act.

Does film music really matter to the average moviegoer? A great score, after all, can't save a bad film, and a bad score - so it's said - can't sink a good one.

The music's job is to get the audience so involved that they forget how the movie turns out.

When you're editing the film, you use a temp track. So you're putting music in there for a rough cut to keep track of what's going on. It can be a hindrance if wrong, it can be an enormous asset if you get it right.

Listen, there are some movies that are set in stone and the writer or the director does not want to change, but I've never worked on a movie, including my own, that didn't take advantage of a rehearsal process.

I no longer do a film for the wrong reasons. I have to be convinced ethically and morally. Both the director and I have to be on the same page. There are just five songs in most films these days, and they have to be amazing. There has to be a twist in the screenplay. The editing has to be crisp. Your hard work should show, but effortlessly.