Quotes About Authenticity

For five albums, I would create an image of someone that wasn't true to who they were. I'd be in love with an idea. It's not an uncommon problem.

I love Andrew Weatherall; he's so real and uncompromising and a sweetheart.

We are so proud of 'Unconditional'. I couldn't have been more honest in these songs, and I can't wait to see the impact they have. This record is exactly what it's supposed to be.

God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.

I like to find things that are unconventional and make them look classic, because if I'm forcing something, you can just tell.

I like to play these unconventional characters, yes. They're close to the way I feel as a human being.

My choices in life have been unconventional, and that's my business. But I do want to live responsibly and truthfully without hiding.

I love being unconventional because that's the reason I stand out.

I was completely unconventional in everything, which my mother found very difficult. I was a huge tomboy.

Looking unconventional with all my imperfections was my great fear going into the industry.

My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the left, so people expected of him a kind of 'Les Miserables,' in which the underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not - and was not interested in - telling a lie.

Think about Kennedy. Think about Carter. Think about Clinton. Think about Obama. They've all been in their forties and from outside Washington, or underdogs in one way or another. I just think that Americans are looking everywhere, saying, 'Hey, show me some authenticity. Show me somebody who's practical. Show me people who run things.'

I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.

The song 'Bite the Thong' in particular, with Damon Albarn, really encapsulates the whole dilemma of, 'Hmm, should I stay on the underground when everybody else is selling out?' Nowadays, you can just do it - have your name-brand clothes, do songs with rock n' rollers - and it's not considered selling out.

We were the underground reporters.

I don't want to stay underground for just the cool people.

I don't care about the underground, even if that's where I'm currently residing sonically.

Even before the mainstream knew about P.O.D., we were going for several years underground. For me, those were the times where it really was about the music and really about the fan base.

There's a certain type of success you can have where it means nothing. You're just becoming someone in Hello! magazine and no one knows what you actually do any more... the only way to escape that is to go back underground.

That's just the way the world's going - everything has to be so instantly commercial that it kills anything that's a little bit underground instantly.

Everything's so commercialised it shuts down the underground.

If I'm gonna make a dancehall record, I'm gonna reference the best dancehall that I know - even if it might just be super underground, but I know it's quality.

In all my books, I try to have a strong element of realism underlying the fantastic.

Be present. Be meditative. Form real friendships. Stay away from business networking events or friendships where there is always an underlying business angle.