Quotes About Artistry

Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.

It's a strange position to be in. Not only the fact that I'm trying to live off work that is personal, but how you get the money for that is racing around the country and smiling for people and selling the record, you know what I mean?

When I first came into the business, I had to, for the sake of being able to sell myself as an artist, always be happy and jovial and smiling. I was the happy nice girl, and I am the happy nice girl, but I have my moments, too.

I love Corey Smith, love his music.

It would be great to have Bach in one corner, Bessie Smith in another, John Lennon in another. That's what I'd ideally like. A studio of the dead.

I like writers who seem to write because they have to. You get the feeling of this burning desire to tell a story. I find it in Peter Carey, Nicola Barker, Ali Smith and David Foster Wallace.

I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can't be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.

I really love Paul Smith. And Chrome Hearts. They make the most beautiful, high-end leather and outerwear and jewelry you've ever seen. But I'm not a big fan of shopping. I certainly am a fan of clothes and especially people that put time into the construction of them.

We'd love to collaborate with Sam Smith. I've told him. Many times. We've got loads of songs we've written that we can literally just hear his voice on.

Someone who's a great hero of mine and has become a friend is Patti Smith.

My voice makes the genre because I sound like me on all my songs - I've made my own genre: Jorja Smith.

You don't see me in the club. And the reason is because I would rather be in the studio mixing these musical potions. Now sometimes they blow up in my face, and there's a lot of smoke. But that's who I am. Music is what I do.

I want to show people that I'm not just that guy who can get out there and scream 'Hooligan's Holiday' and 'Smoke The Sky.'

I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.

I'm actually doing a show. from my shed. on the internet. but it won't be music or anything, it's more to do with drinking and smoking. it's an art piece.

I like my stationery to be funnier, like, 'Here's my note, and it's an elephant with a lady smoking a cigarette on top.'

I love - you know, I'm a big fan of Prince and Curtis Mayfield and Smoky Robinson. It's something to be said about a man who can be very masculine but still display that sensitive side, and that falsetto does it perfectly.

I think as I get older, I'm just going to start making smooth, new age music - no joke.

The very expectation that an actor loves to experiment becomes a shackle that is difficult to snap out of.

I don't think I approach my songs differently from other artists. You get a big picture of it, and you imagine the song and hear and feel it, and that big picture is like a snapshot, and it comes to you as fast as it takes to click a camera.

I'm no snapshot artist. I make very careful choices always, even if I'm using a 35mm camera.

I just think that there is something that keeps us together, to keep doing what we're doing. I can't really put my finger on it other than each record is like a little snapshot of my life at that particular moment, the way I play, the way I sound, the way I wrote, the way I sing, I can hear it.

I second guess everything I do musically, and I often could spend hours on, say, one snare sound.

Just really be yourself, and if being yourself means you play two snare drums and nothing else, then play two snare drums and nothing else! Really figure out who you are and how you want your drums to feel because it's a very emotional instrument.