If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I have a tough time with stand-up because I am an improviser. I can riff; I can do crowd work, so I don't prepare.
When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.
So the actual riffing came out of us just sitting there and doing it the way I think some people think we really did it, which is all spontaneously, and it really was.
Anytime I audition for something, it's always a question of whether or not the people I'm auditioning for understand I'm an improviser and I like to do that, and if they like that or if they just want someone who's going to do what's written.
When you're onstage, you're acutely aware of the reaction of a particular group of people, because it's like a wave.
With improv, it's a combination of listening and not trying to be funny.
There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.
People's association with improvisation means one person playing an endless stream of notes over something, and it doesn't have to be.
One thing will lead to another and somebody will come up with a riff or a line or something we build from.
The way that we imitate each others' riffs is something that other bands don't do as much. If we're jamming with a jazz band, or I am jamming with a jazz band, I have to catch myself, the tendency is always to do that.