Will Sheff Quotes
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A good writer can simulate a page torn out of somebody's diary, and give you every little voyeuristic thrill you might get from that, but actually tell you a broader story. I think it's a noble idea that it's cathartic to open a vein for everybody to see, but ultimately, you're just getting blood everywhere and making a mess. I like the idea that there are deeper and more meaningful things to talk about than your own misery. But at the same time, there's something really interesting about skirting that line and making it seem like you're doing that.
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You have to pretend that you're not bothered by your record leaked early. So that's the tack that I'm taking. It's like if you're working in a store and people come and openly shoplift from you, and you're not allowed to say anything about it. Instead, you're supposed to smile and go, "Hope you enjoy that!" I'm not going to complain about it, I don't get to make the rules. It's just really funny how that works.
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I guess I'm a really analytical person, but when I'm writing, all that stuff goes behind a screen. Analysis and taking things apart is really important and really interesting, but it's the direct opposite of creating something, which has to do with taking things and putting them together and hoping to make something unique that's more than the sum of its parts. And you can't do that with analysis, you can only take things into smaller and smaller pieces.
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Culture dictated from above is the enemy of folk music. Whether it's stuffy classical music or pre-engineered pop where somebody's paid tons of money to make sure that everyone hears this song a certain number of times a day - that feels like the opposite of folk music.
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If you're going for things that are really terrible ideas you have to really have all your faculties about you to get away with them without being crucified. The best rock music gets away with something, somehow, that it shouldn't be allowed to get away with.
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People think that because they've seen your name in print, you're rich. I assume that. But all it means is that there was some intrepid interviewer who bothered to give you a call.
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Everybody has had the experience of something they love – whether it's a pop song or a painting or a movie – feeling so perfect to them that it's almost like it came from another planet. It has nothing to do with ordinary life, which is very plain. And there's something depressing about that in a way, because you feel like you're this small little human, and you feel like it has nothing to do with you.
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It's a really common trap to want your life to live up to some standard that you believe in, and then you start to really examine those standards and realize they come not from experiences you've had, but things you've seen in movies, or feelings you've felt listening to pop songs, or ideas you've received from reading books. And not just happy things, but a lot of the time, sad things. It gets kind of depressing, when you see how movies and songs make these promises to us.
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In a lot of ways, the way you're making your bread and butter is off people who aren't necessarily who you're writing for.
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I was never a kid who dreamt of being a performer. I started singing the songs because nobody knew who I was or cared at all. If I wasn't going to sing them, nobody was going to sing them, so I had to step in and fill that role myself.
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I try not to read reviews, but if it's a really important review or somebody sends it to me, I'll read it. It's really interesting when you read a review of yourself, you see this weird reflected image - it's like looking a funhouse mirror. Like, "It's sort of me, but is my neck really that elongated?" Sometimes it's vaguely embarrassing what people think of you. When I was in Italy doing this press-interview day, this guy asked me, "Are you a tortured soul?" It's embarrassing to have somebody think you're a tortured soul, or that you think of yourself as a tortured soul.
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There is a definite difference between live shows and the recordings. The recordings are for all time, hopefully, so you do want to bring across layers of subtlety. But the live show is this primal experience that everybody's having at the same time, that the recording can at best try to imitate or duplicate.
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When your head is smashing into the concrete you don't have question about whether it's a real sensation. And ultimately, that's what's going to unmake us all - smashing up against the physical reality of death and decay, and being unmade.
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I never considered myself an Americana artist, but I'm a huge fan of old-time music from the States, the recordings that were made in the '20s and '30s. Trying to chase down the exact stylistic trappings of that stuff always felt like a dead end. That spirit of directness and economy, but also the poetic pungency of the writing and almost ugly, or raw, performance - all that seemed like the real message. I've just tried to somehow stay true to that feeling.
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When you're a songwriter, people wonder about your personal life and the meanings behind the songs, and that can feel pretty invasive, so you become protective about your inner world.
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If you were a performer that only had an acoustic instrument, back in the day you couldn't hide behind your guitar pedals or the production or the vibe. There was performance and then there was the song, and that was all that you had.
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I always just wanted to have the wherewithal to make another record. I never really dreamt of fortune or fame, because it seemed so unlikely. I'm much more interested in people's perceptions of me than what my life is really like. It appears that some people think it's all cocaine and caviar for Okkervil River. And it's not. I'm making a little bit more than I was making at the video store right now.
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What's funny about my voice is, no matter what I sing, I sound like I'm really sad. I don't even mean to do it, it's just something my voice has. I think that's one of the reasons why Okkervil has been dubbed as really mopey - I have this tone to my voice that sounds like that.
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Having that little bit of breathing room to work, and not feeling like it's going to fall apart at any second, has allowed me to recover the feeling I had when I was a little kid, when I was writing stories for fun or drawing pictures for my parents to put on their refrigerator. It was about playing and doing something fun, and kind of making your own little world. And that's how art should feel for me, and how having a little bit more distance between my ass and the ground has helped me.
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I think that anything is a form of folk music. That's just me being glib, but the thing I like the best about humans, and there are not many other things besides this, is that humans make culture. If you're an artist, a big part of folk is noticing what other people are doing and incorporating it and changing it - the way that songs warp and change over time.
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I have complicated feelings about nostalgia. I think that sometimes it can be dangerous. It can airbrush the truth, or fictionalize the truth, which leads to the worst kind of sentimentality. But I'm also a sentimental person who feels quite a bit of nostalgia.
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There's something really special about childhood. When you're a kid, you're at your most creative, and you're very plugged into your imagination and emotions. But when you get older, you're encouraged to dance around your feelings and disengage, and I think it's crucial to fight that.
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If I'm working on a set of songs, and thinking about putting them together in a collection, I start to think about what they have in common. Either on purpose or without meaning to, I shape them all in the same kind of way, because I'd rather the album feel like a galaxy of things that all have to do with each other. I do that with sonic elements, too - it's a matter of each record having its own specific identity.
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When people downloading records for free you start to think, "Is it worth spending all this money to make a record sound good, especially if it's going to end up as an mp3?" But I can't drive myself too crazy thinking about that. On one level, being involved in art is all a quixotic thing to begin with.