Quotes from Fred Armisen

I can't be bothered with narrative. It takes too long for me to try to think of it.

Everyone knows deep in their hearts that the drums are the coolest instrument, and that a band is only as good as its drummer. So I'm all for drum solos. I'm all for drummers hamming it up. I'm all for drummers standing up and kicking over the kit.

At 'SNL' there's framed pictures of all the cast members, and it starts with Dan Aykroyd. It's linear. It just keeps going through all these people, and then you're at the end of it.

Steve Jobs was a real rock star to me. I looked forward to his products like people look forward to albums.

The Long Island experience is so strange. You're a satellite around the city, so the presence of the city is always looming.

I want it all... fast. I want to be married, I want to live together... and then somewhere around a year or two years, I get freaked out. I freak out emotionally and then I actually feel like 'Oh my God, who's this stranger in my house?'

Even when I go do comedy stuff live, I can still feel the drummer in me about to go onstage.

For some reason, juggling things makes everything work better. That's just how we operate. It just makes the other project more of something to look forward to. I think the more you keep things going, the more it helps the other project.

I am opposed to vacations and leisure. I try to make every day a work day. Even if there's nothing on my schedule, I will try do at least one task that is work-related.

I have an inability to relax. I try to make every day a work day. I get pleasure from work... I try to think of sketch ideas, stand-up pieces. I am incapable of leisure and leisure time.

I like it when people are driven. I love that in any field of work, in architecture or whatever. Like Lorne Michaels - he pays attention to every detail.

I enjoy getting to work on 'Saturday Night Live', where I get to do people like David Paterson. And then, its like a different muscle to do someone like a bicycle guy on' Portlandia'.

People on the street comment on how handsome I am. You know, people stop and say how angular my face is.

When people say that L.A. doesn't have a culture, I think it really does: a very old culture, and very specific. There's streets named after entertainers, and statues of entertainers, and it's great. Entertainment is still art, even if it makes billions of dollars. So it's like a city built on entertainment, and art in a way.

I will admit that I purposely stress myself out. But I think I like stressing myself out. There's a glamour to, like, 'I've got to get to the airport!' I just like the caricature.

There are so many disagreements in the world, but I like the idea of people agreeing on something like art.

I spent a lot of time lifting my drums into a van, playing to ten people night after night. I can't complain about anything now. That stuff was heavy.

When you're in a band, you spend most of your time in a van. Like, there were four of us, we toured all the time, and you're stuck looking at three other people for a month straight. And all of those times, we all just liked making fun of people, doing impressions of people, coming up with songs.

I really loved touring with my band, but it felt like we would spend a lot of time playing in empty rooms - empty clubs. We had some good successes, but it's so physically hard to load up a van and drive all day.

I don't like watching shows where all of a sudden you're like, what happened? They shot the last season in Las Vegas?

My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there, and then we moved to New York. I'm not very familiar with Mississippi.

I believe in limitations. I think the worst art ever made - in my opinion, because it's all so subjective - is where the artist had complete freedom.

One person who was interesting was Jello Biafra, who was - of all things - very professional!

Fereydun, that's my dad's name. My grandmother, my dad's mom, when she was pregnant, she was dating a man from Persia, a Persian gentleman. It wasn't his child, but he was still very supportive and said, 'Hey, this is a great name,' and so it stuck. So that's what she named him.