Bradford Cox Quotes
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Sometimes, I do have something to say, so I'll sit there and I'll write a song to someone - and then I just throw it away because it makes me cringe.
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I read a lot - surveys of vernacular music. A lot of it is the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, which I've loved since I was in high school. They had it at the library and I always thought that was interesting, even when I was into punk and stuff. Just the history of storytelling and the amount of melancholy a lot of old music has.
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I have really low self-esteem, and it's not easy for me to put myself on an album cover.
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A song like "Walkabout", it's totally imitative. The goal of that song was to make people happy, and I've never really made a song to make people happy before. I really genuinely wanted people to listen to that song and have their spirits lifted.
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Everything I do is 100% automation, which means I'm just doing it live.
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I like playing at public schools. I like when there's more of a diverse audience. I'll play wherever people want to hear my music, and I'll be glad and grateful for the opportunity, but I'd rather not play for a bunch of white privileged kids. I'm not meaning that in a disrespectful way; you go where people want to hear your music. So if that's where people want to hear me play, I'm glad to play for them. But I'd rather play for an audience where half of them were not into it than one where all of them were pretending to be into it, for fear of being uncultured.
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I've been going through a lot of... stuff. I need some space, which people were very kind enough to give me, and I feel really gracious about that. Nobody forces me to do things or say things or do interviews.
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I'm not the guy in the dress with the blood and the unrequited gay whatever - which, according to my psychiatrist, my gayness is a form of narcissism but you'll have to ask him about that.
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You don't need to drink if you have emotional problems.
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Musicians and artists are not... it's not like politicians or something where you can't really affect them. There's not like this separate caste system where it's like, "I'm the musician, you're the audience. Never the two shall meet." It was a case where it was like, "Hey, you know what? I'm on your level, man."
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I was trying to write a song based on a story in a random book of Puerto Rican short stories that I found in a thrift store. I thought it was really dark, and so I tried to interpret it. I've always been interested in writing from other people's perspectives and other gender perspectives.
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I think teenagers just don't have the persistence to pretend to like something they don't anymore. I used to do that - make myself like stuff that didn't immediately appeal to me. When you're 17 and checking out John Cage records from the library. It's not like it's got the hooks of a Ramones record, or a Beach Boys record. But at the same time, you're like, I know there's something in here that I'm supposed to understand. And then eventually you find it.
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Unlike the rest of everyone I hang around with, I don't drink, so I remember what happened after shows. And I have never hit on anyone after a show, I'm not that kind of person. Even if I was attracted to someone, I'd be too shy.
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All music is devotional, whether it's devotion to products, face washes, creams, plastic. Everybody is devoted to something.
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The sober guy is always going to have this air of arrogance or self-righteousness, but it's not my intention. I just knew that if I drank, I'd have a drinking problem.
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My entire education in music was in reading interviews with bands like Stereolab and finding out about Brazilian music or a Romanian composer. You expose yourself to what people you look up to admire.
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Unfortunately it's hard for me to be a fanboy for anything these days just because I see so much music. And it's not a namedropping thing, but there's just not that many people in this certain small little genre world we live in that I don't know or am not acquainted with. And I like them all; I get along with pretty much everyone. It wouldn't be unusual to see a thousand collaborations at some point.
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I don't think it will ever be lessened. Because I always move on to something else - and the music that I listen to, that I ingest, is a lot different than what I put out. I'm always becoming obsessed with the next phase of my musical vocabulary.
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When young groups put out albums, they're always forced to go through this cycle of touring and talking and flaunting and posturing and peacocking. Nobody makes me do that anymore.
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I was only in the public eye because I was annoying. You know how neurotic people may ask for one thing when they may really want another thing? It was like I was asking for attention, but I didn't really want attention.
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That's what culture is based on, the passing down of a certain narrative by imitation.
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I need punk rock. It's the medicine for me, but it's bitter and sickening. If you don't need it - if you're happy and healthy - run toward that.
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I don't have the capacity to write stuff consciously. When I do, it's really awful.
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I don't know if I have any real aspirations to be an actor. It was just something I was asked to do in sort of a friend way. And I thought, Why not?