To what extent do you deliberately ripoff other artists?

Only if I know I'm going to get it totally wrong.

As the band (the Dayglo Fishermen) has a signature sound I know I can use joni mitchell-type chords, play them in a pink floyd style and it'll still sound like us. we also did a roxy music/stones ripoff and a talk talk/ rain tree crow thang. We've found it's better than trying to write a typical Dayglo Fishermen song - then it gets too samey. We wouldn't do a whole album of same-reference tracks.

The Beatles had enough variety that you can just rip off different phases of their career and you don't sound like you're repeating yourself.

I never do it deliberately, because I know I'll do it subconsciously anyway and that kind of ripping off tends to be more inspired.

I'm not sure I have the ability to photocopy someone's sound. When I wrote a song I felt was inspired by Interpol (who've done a bangup job with the photocopy machine), it came out sounding more like "Bob Marley goes goth".

But that's exactly what I think Interpol sounds like! Brilliant!

A lot.

A whole lot.

inasmuch as I like the simplicity of 4/4, the 90-140 bpm tempo range and the usage of arpeggiators, chord memory and lots of delay/reverb to make cool noises, tons and tons.

if I start making something that sounds too much like something else I basically just delete the whole mess right away

nb here "something else" can also mean something else I've already done myself