Quotes from Lou Barlow

One thing about when I came back into Dinosaur that was really cool was that pretty much anybody that J. was working with who had a long-term relationship with J. were people I really liked and that I actually may have already known.

I always felt that when people found things that they didn't like about me, it seemed to distance them from me.

A lot of times, when you record something, the album becomes less about the music and more technical.

Some of my songs are positive and stuff, but some are about staring down at the ground and obsessing about stupid things, and it is teenage in a way.

With every performance I just feel more energized somehow. Like, this is how I exercise! This is how I feed my ego, by playing this loud rock music.

I'm the Folk Implosion's biggest fan.

I have to focus and keep things together as much as anyone with a real job... It's just that I know, from experience, that the more fun I have doing something that the more successful it will be.

I don't know what ontological means... I barely graduated high school, and I have never heard that word in conversation.

I think musicians naturally gravitate toward music that sounds real.

Los Angeles was really beautiful, and California in general is a great place to live.

NYC is a wonderland full of passionate music fans. Once I got over being intimidated by rock critics and finicky hipsters, I realized that NYC was a great place to play.

I'm realizing I need to be in close proximity to everyone I'm working with because that - I don't know - it keeps me engaged.

I can finish a show and walk through the audience without being recognized.

The minute we first started recording 'Defend Yourself,' I thought, 'Yeah. We're going to have to deal with a really terrible review from Pitchfork for this record.'

I think people, just because of digital recording and how computers have become such an important part of our lives, I think the means to record music now is in more people's hands. It's a lot cheaper than it used to be.

After discovering the Ramones, I discovered really crude ways to multi-track by taking another cassette recorder and plugging that into the eight-track, playing it back, so that as I was recording with the mic in my guitar, I could have another cassette player I had recorded on feeding into the recording.

I like to collaborate with other people for studio recordings because I believe collaboration, in any form, makes music better.

Harmony Korine, the screenwriter, was really into my early work. I did a lot of stuff under the name Sentridoh and a lot of 4-track cassette stuff that he was into.

J. makes me laugh. He's incredibly dry and has a pretty harsh sense of humor that I enjoy.

I've been trying to cut down on caffeine because it seems to aggravate my middle-age-onset acne, but I'm too tired to care. I'm growing a beard to hide it.

All the issues you deal with get more complicated as you get older; it takes more focus to write songs that reflect what you've gone through.

People in the Midwest, there's a lot of regional pride and a lot more, like, fake positivity - 'That's great - you're awesome!'

Some people play steel string beautifully, but I'm not exactly a world-class picker.

Within Istanbul, there's a ton of people who are totally hip - like, the hippest people you could ever meet.