Ezra Furman Quotes
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What really is wild about rock 'n' roll? Nothing. It's so banal and so part of corporate culture. It threatens to lose all its life.
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One of my goals in making music is to make the world seem bigger, and life seem larger.
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I think there's a large worry in queer communities about imitating straight people, when queerness has its own identity and maybe can be a radical force that should be dismantling stuff that locks people into structures.
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The Velvet Underground is probably the best band that's ever existed, assuredly the best American one.
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You know, a lot of people have an instinct to downplay the fact that they are performing and be, like, 'There is no theatre here. This is just me playing the songs.' At some point I just realised how much better it could be if you weren't shy about being a performer.
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I honestly feel like I've been mostly toiling in obscurity until a little bit after 'Day Of the Dog' came out.
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I'm in this effort to unify my life and to live day to day in a disciplined way, to be real at all times, not just in front of people, or not just in a synagogue.
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I was thinking very carefully about going into education, becoming a teacher, maybe becoming a rabbi.
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I was pretty much into punk rock and that's all I cared about. I was into Green Day and the Ramones. I wanted to get a guitar so I could play punk songs because this kid taught me power chords at summer camp.
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I believe an authentic Judaism would legislate total equality for queer people.
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I get stage fright really bad sometimes, so touring has been hard on me in a lot of ways. But despite that, I love performing.
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I always maintain that artists do not have any responsibility to do anything except cause no harm and do whatever we want to do as artists.
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In terms of keeping kosher, I've basically just been vegetarian. I want to be fully vegetarian anyway, though sometimes my mom makes chicken soup and I have to eat it. I just love it.
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A lot of bands break through with their third record: the White Stripes, the Clash, the Replacements.
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Part of what you hear when somebody says something awful to you is like, 'They're right, I look ridiculous, why am I dressed this way, I should go home and change.' For me that voice is always in my head, right around the corner.
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Listening to songs is like eating and writing songs is like vomiting. You're putting a ton of stuff in, it combines in unpredictable ways, and comes back out in a big mess.
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If I can see the sunrise - and I usually don't - I like to. I'm a big fan of the sun.
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Ezra Furman And The Boy-Friends was a band with a specific mission - to be a really good rock'n'roll band. And we achieved it.
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I don't like the notion that artists have a responsibility to be political.
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I'm a big fan of Louis CK - I think he's a master of standup.
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It's always about staying competitive with myself... Popularity is something that may happen from time to time, and I don't trust it and I don't think it means too much. I'm going for greatness.
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Learning that someone is gay, queer, trans, doesn't tell you much by itself. They could be any kind of person aside from that particular slice of identity.
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Far from being a showbiz gimmick, for me dressing as I please has signalled the end of a lifelong performance of straightforward masculinity.
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I could write a joke song really easily, but I think something that might be true for my generation is that there's a certain irony or detachedness expected of us, even though we really feel sincere. So the only way to sincerity is through a joke.