Quotes from Ron Mael

Being brothers is why it's worked so long. I have that security working with Russell. Working on my own, I'd be really nervous - I wouldn't be able to take it.

Well, some people assume when Russell is singing that it is coming from his feelings, but sometimes he's just playing a character.

I can't say it wasn't fun in the 70s having screaming people in the audience.

I don't know why, but I collect the hand sanitizers in every country that we visit.

My favourite Ghibli film is maybe lesser known: the 'Tale of Princess Kaguya.' It's a different visual style, by a different director to most of the films, but it's really beautiful, and an old Japanese fable brought to life in an almost moving-watercolour kind of way.

It's a secret club, people that have a certain sense of humor, and it doesn't matter whether it's a romantic situation or a creative one.

In a certain way, longevity is its own kind of success. While we would like to be in the position of those bands that are secure in ways that maybe we're not, we kind of feel like we're in a better position. We're bitter for short periods of time, but in the long run, we think we won out.

It's almost as if the most successful people don't put too much effort into being so brilliant at what they do, that they're just doing extraordinary things. The truth, however, is they're putting more and more effort into maintaining their levels of excellence.

I like the jarring thing, both in the music and the lyrics. That's why a lot of times our songs have a proper name of somebody. Usually you hear lyrics and something's going on, but it's just song lyrics. But if there's something in it, even a name that you don't associate with a song, it sticks out and becomes less wallpaper.

When things are sequenced really hard, it has an effect similar to the one power chords had in the '70s.

To be sitting on a movie set in Brussels and watching Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard singing something you wrote - it's surreal, way beyond what we expected.

When things come back and we're in some small way cast as the originators of a movement, we don't take it as much as a compliment as some people may consider it.

Our knowledge of Swedish culture is kind of limited. Bergman was one Swedish thing that we both knew about and were kind of passionate about.

We think it's important to do something that's polarizing.

We just thought that bands from the U.S. in general were just really boring, and they didn't represent what we felt pop music should be.

We really like pop music, and it's not something to look down on or to legitimize. It is what it is.

We sometimes feel a little world-weary where pop music is going.

If you don't like this, we don't care - I think that's the essence of what popular music should be.

To us, something can be uplifting even if the tone of it is not cheerful - it can be uplifting because it's just so well done.

Even when something's funny, it has to be well-written, too. So we are really aware of the craft part of pop music. We really have a respect for the genre and feel that it's valuable. It's legitimate in its own way and it has as many possibilities as any other kind of music.

I would be happy presenting our albums as part of a joint autobiography.

There's something about Cannes being this ultimate film destination, and we're passionate about films; we grew up with foreign films.

We made demos of those early songs that we recorded in our guitarist's bedroom with just a reel-to-reel tape, and we sent those to at least 20 different record companies at the time thinking, oh the offers are just going to be flowing in. The only person that did respond was Todd Rundgren, and we're forever indebted to him.

I wouldn't be caught dead in a disco.