Quotes from Frank Black

As soon as I got into music, I tried to be a working, real artist who gets paid for what he does, who doesn't have a day job.

I like visual images and there are certainly other bands that have strong visual images going all the way back to Elvis Presley, but it's kind of like that's never really been my bag. Probably because I'm too shy.

I don't want to do children's music. I write kids songs, but the kids songs I write are for my kids - like when I'm putting them to bed. We sing some song that we made up but I don't want to make a record like that.

I drive a lot. Just for pleasure. Sometimes I'll get in the Cadillac and drive around the city or the country, kind of trying to get lost basically. Y'know, just see where roads lead.

They're pretty good actually, Hall & Oates. I gotta give them credit. They got a lot of toe-tappers.

I listen to Neil Young and jazz and classical stations and, if my girlfriend's driving, it tends to be Hall & Oates.

There's more to life than listening to rock music.

It more or less has the shape of a love song, but 'Crescent Moon' reflects more my longing for an ancient romantic context that includes wild animals, fire, danger of death, stellar navigation, and seasonal intuition.

I'm an untrained musician. Untrained musicians don't really have any music theory, they don't have a lot of rules. We break the rules, but it's mostly because we don't know what the rules are. It's easy for us to go to certain places, so I'm not surprised that a lot of people were amused by my songwriting style.

The dumber half of the audience - whether they're male or female, and a lot of them are male - for some reason responds very quickly to the feminine voice. How can I put it? They kind of instantly react to the female voice in a positive way quicker than they would the male voice.

I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Guthrie song.

I don't make records that way, where I'm trying to please the marketplace or anything. Not because I have anything against that, it's just never been a part of my aesthetic, even when I was with the Pixies.

You should never rely on interviews with musicians as being factual. Most of them are mangled and even have made up stuff in them, that is to say, made up stuff by the writer or editor.

For some artists the live performance is the chicken before the egg of writing or recording of repertoire. For other artists the writing or recording of repertoire is the chicken before the egg of live performance.

I have always been a singer, a writer, and a musician, not as a prodigy or as in a trade handed to me by my parents, but because of an inner voice or maybe a command from beyond reality as it is usually defined.

Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire 'troubadours.' I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L'Occitane, I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.

Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire 'troubadours.' I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L'Occitane, I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.

They're a different generation, those kids kids that are under the age of twelve. They're not that impressed by rock music, you know what I mean? They're like, it's cool and everything, but whatever. They're just as impressed by YouTube.

It's sour grapes, I admit, I want to be more famous so people are examining my work couplet by couplet, you know what I mean? That's the level where I want to go.

It more or less has the shape of a love song, but 'Crescent Moon' reflects more my longing for an ancient romantic context that includes wild animals, fire, danger of death, stellar navigation, and seasonal intuition.

The dumber half of the audience - whether they're male or female, and a lot of them are male - for some reason responds very quickly to the feminine voice. How can I put it? They kind of instantly react to the female voice in a positive way quicker than they would the male voice.

I'm not saying that people have to listen to rock music. It's a great, cool thing and it can really be liberating for a lot of people but, hey, so can Charles Dickens so I'm not going to judge.

Bob Dylan is quite a songwriter, and a great singer and musician. I won't bother with comparing myself to him, but I will say that I heard his records at a very young age and I still listen to all his records.

I'm not saying that people have to listen to rock music. It's a great, cool thing and it can really be liberating for a lot of people but, hey, so can Charles Dickens so I'm not going to judge.