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Some folks believe that hardship breeds artistic creativity. I don't buy it. One can put up with poverty for a while when one is young, but it will inevitably wear a person down.
David Byrne
I've rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.
Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.
Suburban houses and tin sheds are often the objects of ridicule.
I'm concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I'm aiming for, which is not such a good thing.
People use irony as a defense mechanism.
I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.
Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.
I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?
I'm afraid that everything will get homogenized and be the same.
I don't think people are going to switch over to bikes because it's good for them or because it's politically correct. They're going to do it because it gets them from A to B faster.
To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware.
The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.
I think sometimes - not always - I write songs that are accessible.
It seems almost backwards to me that my music seems the more emotional outlet, and the art stuff seems more about ideas.
We live in ugly times.
I don't like begging money from producers.
Probably the reason it's a little hard to break away from the album format completely is, if you're getting a band together in the studio, it makes financial sense to do more than one song at a time. And it makes more sense, if you're going to all the effort of performing and doing whatever else, if there's a kind of bundle.
Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively - as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk-free.
I came to New York to be a fine artist - that was my ambition.
I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.
You go to a festival, you know you're not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I've made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.
Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.
Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don't have names for what they are or haven't identified them all. We can't pinpoint exactly what makes each city's people unique yet.
I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary.
In a certain way, it's the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.
When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.
Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?
I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.
All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.
I've noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I'm not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.
One knew in advance that life in New York would not be easy, but there were cheap rents in cold-water lofts without heat, and the excitement of being here made up for those hardships. I didn't move to New York to make a fortune.
Artists are notoriously snooty and suspicious of anything coming from the business community.
Do I wear a helmet? Ugh. I do when I'm riding through a precarious part of town, meaning Midtown traffic. But when I'm riding on secure protected lanes or on the paths that run along the Hudson or through Central Park - no, I don't wear the dreaded helmet then.
Physical contact is a human necessity.
So there's no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn't necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn't necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.
Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.
Obviously, you go through a lot of emotional turmoil in a divorce.
The physical sensation of gliding with the wind in your face is exhilarating. That automatic activity of pedalling, when you have to be awake but not think too much, allows you to let subconscious thoughts bubble up, and things seem to just sort themselves out. And the adrenaline wakes you up if you weren't properly alert.
One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you're allowed to fail.
The arts don't exist in isolation.
It's a fundamental, social attitude that the 1% supports symphonies and operas and doesn't support Johnny learning to program hip-hop beats. When I put it like that, it sounds like, 'Well, yeah', but you start to think, 'Why not, though?' What makes one more valuable than another?
There's something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There's something that invites all this obsessive behavior.
I've been asking myself: 'Why put together these things - CDs, albums?' The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it's artistically viable. It's not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it's not obvious or even conscious on the artists' part.
Everything's intentional. It's just filling in the dots.
Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.
I ride my bike almost every day here in New York. It's getting safer to do so, but I do have to be fairly alert when riding on the streets as opposed to riding on the Hudson River bike path or similar protected lanes.
Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.
Technology has allowed people to make records really cheap. You can make a record on a laptop.
Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.
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