James Murphy Quotes
-
Titles are relatively arbitrary to me; they take on meanings that aren't really my meanings. 'Sound Of Silver' was just, like, I made the studio silver, and I wanted the record to sound 'more silver.'
-
I understand that if someone's going to make me his idea of cool, I can't control that.
-
I write songs all the time. Sometimes they're just weird songs I sing while changing a baby, or songs about annoying things that I sing to myself, or to friends while sitting at a bar, or about Christmas or New York.
-
To me, the band is like one of my homes, in fact. It's not like, 'I've got to get out of this band. I've got to go home.' This band is home in a lot of ways. It's my closest friends; it's a place where I really feel comfortable and happy.
-
In my experience, people looking for progress aren't actually looking to move things forward. They're looking to be perceived in a certain way: as a forward thinker. It's about vanity rather than any altruistic motives for the art.
-
I had friends who were jocks or whatever... Then, around 12 or 13, kids get cliquish and cruel, and that disgusted me. It seemed a reprehensible use of one's arbitrary social status. So I got really aggressive about it and became more of a weird kid.
-
The more you are like me, the less interested in my band you are.
-
You can't be afraid to embarrass yourself sometimes.
-
I spent a good amount of time with David Bowie, and I was talking about getting the band back together. He said, 'Does it make you uncomfortable?' I said 'Yeah,', and he said, 'Good. It should. You should be uncomfortable.'
-
Restaurants remind me of bands: there's lots of camaraderie, people work very closely together, very hard, and it's a bad job to pick if you want to make lots of money. Whether music or food, the reward always has to be because you love it.
-
I have a very toxic combination of being completely determined, inflexible, controlling and being totally shy, guilty at hurting anyone's feelings, hypersensitive to other people's needs - and it's just paralysing.
-
Making 'Sound of Silver' was very emotional at times, where I just hated making that record.
-
As things mature - whether they be real estate, rock n' roll, politics, festivals, radio - there's an efficiency that develops, and with it, very often, comes some soul-crushing truths.
-
I'm not a big songwriter guy. People who are really good singer-songwriters usually left me kind of cold.
-
When given the opportunity to fail myself or fail someone else, I choose to fail myself.
-
One of the things that I think is special about DJing is creating this atmosphere of collectiveness, as if to say, 'We're all in this together.'
-
When I was a kid, when the Walkman came out, I was sold. I listened to music 24 hours a day.
-
I don't see myself as necessarily a very creative person. I'm a technical guy.
-
Songs are songs, and to reduce them is to waste them.
-
There's a difference between a cheap lie and a beautiful lie.
-
I've been to Manchester enough to know it's a real place. It's not Factory Records and the Smiths bicycling around. I get it. It's a modern city.
-
If being in a band was my job, then I would quit. This is not a good job. A good job is in financial management.
-
I think that not being all that overwhelmed by good reviews is a luxury. I'm like a rich person who says he doesn't care about money.
-
Songs can click together really quickly, and other times, they're really laborious and heavy-lifting.