Quotes About Artistry

I wanted to work with Sriram Raghavan, the master of noir.

To me, the best music always comes when - it sounds cliche, but you just try to block out the noise and try to not have any pressure with it and take your time.

I found a way to connect with lots of instruments rather than just fixating on one of them. I just loved making noise on anything.

First I was a European-style player, then I was a downtown 'noise guy,' and now some people call me an Americana guy.

I saw Double Leopards play at my school and realized there were other ways to approach noisy music that weren't necessarily aggressive. That became a very important concept for me as a musician. I don't think I would have been that interested in creating and performing my own music if it wasn't for this group.

Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue.

I'm the kind of writer that, once I get into writing mode in my brain, I'm non-stop.

I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense - I want the director to see what I'm trying to do.

I liked singing, but I didn't like all the politics and nonsense that went with it.

Music is my life. I love doing it, so I just do it nonstop all day. And with dancing, I wanted to put on a show for people. I don't want to just be sitting there doing nothing, so that's when I started to dance.

I'm one of those artists who doesn't really believe in fame. You can be a normal person these days, you don't need celebrity appeal.

I never really approach collaborations as kind of normal things where they're arranged and they happen because you've arranged them. I've always been like this, I just have friends I hang out with, and while we're hanging out, if music happens then it happens.

I've found constancy and balance between creativity and normality.

I normally start at the computer with something really simple like a four-bar loop of a drum sample or a bass line. And then I just start adding layers of synthesizers.

Sometimes, when comedians get success, they don't do as much weird stuff as they normally do.

Normally doing an album you go from track to track and go, 'Let's not work on this one today, let's go work on the other one,' and I think you tend to get more self-indulgent that way.

Normally the amount of music we have is what you hear on the album and that's it.

I would say my flow is Aboriginal. Look at my face, nose, lips, and eyes.

I never wanted us to be an exercise in nostalgia, living in the shadow of other artists.

But I think what makes a band great is that you're not trying to be someone else ever. At no point do you want it to become nostalgic; you never want to be a cover band for anybody.

I'm just not interested in selling out to get on the charts and make people happy.

I'm not interested in entertainment.

The last thing I want to do is to write about real things. I am not interested in reality and in real human beings and their real day-to-day problems - I just want to say to them, 'Hold still, and I'm just going to unpack, see what's inside.'

Life would be much easier if I just wrote the same book over and over again. But I'm not interested in doing that.