Quotes from Bryce Dessner

Playing pentatonic scales over orchestral music is not something I want to do or listen to.

Early on, I was a performer playing classical music. It's in my DNA in a way that I can't begin to extract it.

With 'Boxer,' we made the kind of music we wanted to make and didn't really worry about what the expectation was.

I love the physicality of instruments, and instruments as objects, like dancers are bodies.

As much as you try to organize your life, life will surprise you.

In terms of the music, it feels almost like trouble's a good thing - you never know when a song is going to surprise you. We look for these subversive moments in songs.

I came from a classical background, and I was teaching and earning a living out of music at a certain level, so it's funny to make it as a rock star when we're 40 or whatever.

If you learn classical guitar, you play Bach, and then John Dowland. He's the greatest. He's interesting for many, many reasons.

Me, who's educated classically, I went toward rock music 'cause it was sort of a natural evolution from where I was playing with my brother. But I was always drawn back into classical music.

Part of what I enjoy about writing classical music is communicating through the score and collaborating with such amazing musicians.

Being a classical musician, you can go to school for it; you can go get a degree. Even as a composer, there is a certain career path you can follow, but becoming a rock musician is a much more elusive career. How do you learn that or do that?

For a composer of concert music, 40 is actually very young. But for a rock musician, 40 is almost past due, where you think of rock music as really part of more youth-oriented culture.

I think that place is a huge part of pretty much any musician's work, in how one responds to an environment, whether it be your actual surroundings or the more figurative place we're all living in.

My grandmother was born in Russia, and she came through Poland on her way to America in the early 20s. She moved to Brooklyn.

I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.

It doesn't necessarily take four years to write a good piece of music. It might take four hours. It just depends on when your inspiration comes.

Working with Bob Weir directly, we learned how high the bar is for Dead music.

As a band gets more successful, there's a danger of falling in love with your own shadow.

I think that becoming a successful rock band is a little like becoming a professional athlete. Nobody plans on it.

The thing I realised about composition is, we remember most composers for four bars of music. Four singable bars of music. Pretty much any major composer from Debussy to Ravel to Mozart to whoever else - you can kind of hum it.

If you make rock music with guitars in it, the Radiohead comparison is inevitable.

As little boys, my brother and I used to spend hours with my grandmother, asking her about the details of how she came to America. She could only give us a smattering of details, but they all found their way into our collective imagination, eventually becoming a part of our own cultural identity and connection to the past.

Nobody plans on playing their own songs in front of thousands of people.

I'm not trying to take over the world, but I find it really rewarding to write, and I thrive on learning.