Feist Quotes
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Commercialism isn't challenging creatively; it's only challenging in a stamina way.
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I've not really spent much time in proper studios. The room itself where you're recording, and how you live while you're there is what appeals to me.
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When you say something or sing something enough times, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's almost like casting spells. I don't mean necessarily in the flighty, 'I'm going to go buy a cloak with a hood now' way.
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Something that I think I figured out slowly was if you're playing a show and there's a chatter or there is, you know, a lot of noise - people talking or something - I was never the one whose instinct was to try to be louder than them.
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Any kind of anthemic song, for the most part, they're on the positive side of things. It's not hard to identify when a melody is just one degree too complicated or one degree too simple and where that line of pop memorability lies.
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When I first played '1234' it was on stage in San Francisco at some kind of, like, sticky-floored club. And it felt like a punk song. I mean it's ridiculous to say that now, but it had that kind of, like, piercing straight melody. And then this fist-pumping ending, you know that pa-dap-pada.
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I remember doing my mosaics or being in my little hiding place behind the couch snooping. I'd get bored sometimes, of course, but I think that's good for a kid, because it forces you to be creative.
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There's nothing better than not knowing what's going to happen until you put the pieces together.
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Musically, I didn't relate to Berlin. There seemed to be a lot of machine music made there - I don't think I saw a stringed instrument in two years.
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And of course, pop music is all about memorability and simplicity and positive messages and a little dash of joy.
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On the videos for '1234' and 'My Moon My Man' I wanted to make the songs visible. And, really, what way can you make sound visible other than good old naive dancing? I was working with a choreographer, but I'm not a dancer. Any notion of elegance is impossible with me.
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I need therapy after writing. It's like leaking blood from a stone. It's brutally difficult but worth it.
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I once looked over the shoulder of a friend on Facebook and it looked like hieroglyphs to me. There's merit online, of course, but social media gets super freaky. Imagine if three generations from now, people online have forgotten what date or day of the week it is.
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I was a bar-back, which is the person who cleans the bathrooms at the end of the night in the bar, and a cook. I had kind of given up. I was into backing other people up. Music was something I just did on the side and I don't think I had the energy to pimp myself out, like call people up and ask them to book me to play.
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I made the first Feist album in '98. So at that point, it was my nickname. It was as far as with my circle of friends, and just felt more accurate than two names.
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For me, music is in the choice of what not to play as much as in what you've chosen to play.
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I get really scared about how the Internet is shifting and changing everyone's minds, and the way we see ourselves and interact online. Everything is so diluted now.
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There's real potency in metal. Metal fans love metal as if it's a nation they would fight for. It's not diluted by pop culture.
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There's a crazy amount of goodwill, and I don't know where it came from, and I don't understand, but the more I pay attention to it, the more it's going to sting when it flips, so I think I'm almost subconsciously cultivating this naivety to it all.
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I didn't really get London until I read Dickens. Then I was charmed to death by it.