Creativity Quote by Paul Kantner

Calling the California studio scene “sort of ridiculous” is Kantner doing what he did best: puncturing the myth without pretending he’s above it. The word “studio” isn’t just a room with tape machines; it’s a whole ecosystem of gatekeepers, budgets, ego, and polish. By the late ’60s into the ’70s, California’s recording world had become a factory for “professional” sound - session aces, spotless mixes, radio-friendly arrangements - and Kantner, as Jefferson Airplane’s resident skeptic and sci-fi dreamer, is side-eyeing the assembly line.

“Sort of” is the tell. He’s not launching a manifesto, he’s shrugging with intent. That casual qualifier keeps the critique conversational, like he’s letting you in on something everyone in the room already knows but keeps performing anyway. “Ridiculous” lands as a cultural diagnosis: the theater of authenticity inside an industry built on artifice. It’s the absurdity of people chasing spontaneity with spreadsheets, trying to bottle counterculture in a schedule of union breaks and label notes.

Context matters because California sold itself as a frontier: sunshine, freedom, new sounds. Studios were supposed to be the modern lab for that freedom. Kantner’s jab suggests the lab became a showroom. The subtext is both affectionate and contemptuous: the scene is full of talent, but it’s also full of rituals that confuse expense for meaning. In one short line, he’s defending mess, risk, and live-wire energy against the seductions of perfectly engineered cool.