Quotes from Ezra Furman

Once you admit how bad it feels to live in a broken society, you can start to resist it, and imagine a better one.

I just don't care that much about the band name. I'm not so precious about it. The Harpoons were different people, but The Boy-Friends were and are the same people as The Visions. I changed it to The Visions when we made 'Transangelic Exodus' because I guess we didn't feel so friendly and boyish anymore.

I'm trying to be an activist, and I think of that as separate from my work as an artist. But it isn't.

I'm just grateful to people who are willing to admit how bad things feel for them.

More visibility is more power, but more vulnerability.

People get stigmatised for their bodies and for their differences. Then those people become very vulnerable.

I was pretty much into punk rock and that's all I cared about. I was into Green Day and the Ramones. I wanted to get a guitar so I could play punk songs because this kid taught me power chords at summer camp.

If I can see the sunrise - and I usually don't - I like to. I'm a big fan of the sun.

It's one of the guiding philosophies of my life - not fearing any authority on earth.

I'm an amateur at music and an amateur at most things. I like the idea of offering some music and some records and a website to people who feel perplexed.

I grew up attending a Conservative day school, Solomon Schechter, until I was about 14, and going to a Reconstructionist synagogue.

I think I'm gradually becoming a more politically aware person.

I've always been drawn to ambiguity in pop music.

My two most fervent interests are pop music and traditional Judaism. Hell of a pair of fervent interests.

If you're trying to deal with being a marginalized person and trying to confront a larger population that isn't the same as you, you can be friendly about it, and invite everybody in, or you can be angry about it and be hostile and attack the systems that you want to destabilize.

I'm certainly not interested in religion for religion's sake or for some kind of structure or stabilizing force. Religion is supposed to be for God's sake and God is an unpredictable, wild thing.

My focus is matters of the heart and matters of the spirit, emotion and passion and stuff like that. But I think I've been getting better at being more specific about what it is I care about. Such as the welfare of refugees and solidarity between threatened populations.

We music fans go to shows for transcendence; it's like being called to prayer.

Desperate times make for desperate songs.

I wrote 'My Teeth Hurt' in April 2018 when my teeth hurt and I didn't have dental insurance.

Some part of me hopes for a guardian angel to protect me and other people who need protection.

I'm a shy person whose very presence has become a confrontation. I think that's true of a lot of queer people.

The first music I loved on my own was punk.

I first got into music when I heard punk, and it was saying maybe it's OK if you don't live up to the expectations various authorities have for you.