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It was writing about music for NPR - connecting with music fans and experiencing a sense of community - that made me want to write songs again. I began to feel I was in my head too much about music, too analytical.
Carrie Brownstein -
I like to connect with people through my work. That's my favorite way - meetings of the minds, fans at a show. Those are nice mediated ways of hanging out.
Carrie Brownstein
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I've noticed that as someone who has done music and creative things in Washington state and Portland, to kind of toot your own horn, or admit, "I'm going for it. I'm hustling," is not exactly the norm. Which is weird, because you go to New York, or LA, or anywhere else, you've got to be gunning for it - and you should be - you're part of a fast-moving stream of other people who are really ambitious. People move here to work less. So, to say that you're hustling all the time, and going for it, is kind of a little bit against the grain here.
Carrie Brownstein -
The natural world operates by its own set of rules. The animal world, all the places that are feral and ungovernable, that's where I find a lot of inspiration. There is just as much beauty there, but there is also decay and violence.
Carrie Brownstein -
Nothing is as nice as plugging in your guitar and turning up the volume really loud, just seeing what kind of beautiful noise you can make with it.
Carrie Brownstein -
It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous.
Carrie Brownstein -
Practice. Learn and then unlearn - that's the trick in finding your own style of playing. You can't merely emulate, you have to innovate, or at the very least create your own path into the process.
Carrie Brownstein -
I think one of the reasons that we are able to actually keep making music that we want to make, and that we're inspired by, is because there is a certain amount of instability constantly, and I think that mirrors the instability of any given life.
Carrie Brownstein
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It's very common to think that we're always evolving, that we've changed so much from our younger selves, that within decades we've transformed into these different people. We like to think that. I feel in some ways that I am still so much my younger self. There are ways that I'm different: I feel like I'm wiser and kinder. But I think a lot of the impulses are still the same. I learned that.
Carrie Brownstein -
I guess the role of art is to make something that is ambiguous and complex.
Carrie Brownstein -
For a while I had somebody that came to clean my house that turned out to be in a band that I really loved.
Carrie Brownstein -
To me, that ugliness, that grotesqueness - that's the essence [of life]. That's where you realize, it's not about all the consonance and the harmony. It's all the parts that are wrong that help explain why we're drawn to something - what the mystery is - just as much as the beautiful things.
Carrie Brownstein -
Well, in some ways I had sort of the opposite experience of other people that are sort of dreaming of being in a rock band. I was dreaming of like corporate lunches and just like, and I'm not really joking. Like the whole idea to me was really appealing.
Carrie Brownstein -
We brainstorm an idea and then we do flesh it out a little bit - we come up with a script, mostly to have beats and a sense of a story and a narrative arc. Often when we get into the space and onto the location, that changes and something we discover in the moment becomes the moment, becomes the story, becomes the character.
Carrie Brownstein
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Twitter is sort of version of labeling, except with 140 characters instead of a labelmaker. It's the way of calling things out for what they are, wearing badges. Twitter is like the new Scarlet Letter.
Carrie Brownstein -
Rihanna has guts and she always seems to be singing from someplace honest, dark and fierce.
Carrie Brownstein -
From a self-conscious standpoint, it's hard to see myself on a screen in a way that isn't just me playing music or doing something silly.
Carrie Brownstein -
I would not call myself an optimist, even though I would aspire to be. I am innately a skeptic. There's kind of an incessant dissatisfaction that I have, that I'm always trying to either expose or fight against or wrestle with.
Carrie Brownstein -
It's so nice to have a band name you don't have to explain.
Carrie Brownstein -
The school systems at my childhood had enough money or enough parent involvement that they felt like learning music and songs, and exploring the whole pop or classical canon, were just as important as algebra or biology. Music is such a visceral and tactile experience for a kid, and to just replace that with video games or something that doesn't have the same sort of physical impact would definitely be a poor choice, and have a negative impact.
Carrie Brownstein
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I think short-term goals are important. Trying to set a missive for yourself for the entire year can be daunting, and it can feel too easy to fail or fall short of that.
Carrie Brownstein -
If I have a strong dislike for something, obviously that garners an equal amount of derision, towards me from the audience. And that's fine, as long as it's within the bounds of decency and isn't too personal in the vitriol. That's what makes the blog interesting, and that's what makes reading it interesting and that's what makes writing interesting. You don't want everyone to agree.
Carrie Brownstein -
The fact that people go to Portland to visit a tiny feminist bookstore-no matter what the impetus is for them getting there-the fact that they go in there and look around and shop for books or stationery or whatever, is a major source of pride for me.
Carrie Brownstein -
I think, for some artists, the fear of taking on a political identity stems from not wanting to be pigeonholed as political actor or a political musician. It becomes this thing where somehow your art can no longer exist on its own and be multifaceted.
Carrie Brownstein