Time & Perspective Quote by Duncan Sheik

“Workaholic” lands here as both confession and branding: the kind of self-diagnosis that signals discipline without admitting doubt. Coming from Duncan Sheik, a songwriter who broke out in the late 90s with a moody, radio-ready intimacy and later built a second life in theater (notably Spring Awakening), the line reads like an artist narrating a pivot. Pop careers rarely move in a straight line; they either calcify into nostalgia or mutate into new forms of relevance. The studio becomes a refuge from that volatility, a place where effort can stand in for the fickleness of taste.

There’s also a subtle repositioning of authority. “I’m in the studio all the time” isn’t just about stamina; it’s about legitimacy in a music economy that tends to separate “singer-songwriter” from “producer” as if one is a diary and the other is architecture. By adding “I’ve helped to produce a couple of artists,” Sheik is quietly expanding his job description: no longer only the voice in front of the mic, but the person shaping other people’s sound, taste, and narrative.

The subtext is mentorship with a résumé attached. Producing “a couple of artists” sounds casual, even modest, but it signals access and influence: a move from being judged to doing the judging, from chasing the moment to helping manufacture it. And calling it “lately” hints at urgency, the sense that staying still in music is its own kind of disappearance.