Ezra Furman Quotes
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I just don't care that much about the band name. I'm not so precious about it. The Harpoons were different people, but The Boy-Friends were and are the same people as The Visions. I changed it to The Visions when we made 'Transangelic Exodus' because I guess we didn't feel so friendly and boyish anymore.
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My two most fervent interests are pop music and traditional Judaism. Hell of a pair of fervent interests.
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Sometimes there's a day where I don't feel good being out in the world, and I feel unsafe in the world in general. And an anxiety about just showing up in the world. It's kind of irrational, but people do say things to me out in the street about how I'm dressed.
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I'm a big fan of Louis CK - I think he's a master of standup.
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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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I was thinking very carefully about going into education, becoming a teacher, maybe becoming a rabbi.
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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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Just being gender non-conforming opens you to trouble from strangers. And violence.
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I first got into music when I heard punk, and it was saying maybe it's OK if you don't live up to the expectations various authorities have for you.
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I don't like the notion that artists have a responsibility to be political.
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My bassist Jorgen Jorgensen opened up my life to a lot of great, obscure old soul records.
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I wanted to get a guitar when I was 13 so I could play punk songs because kid taught me power chords at summer camp. He was like, "You could play all punk songs if you just learn this chord and just move it around on the guitar".
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It's a good feeling to not tell people what's going on.
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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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I don't really worship the album 'Transformer.' It's not the best thing that Lou Reed has done.
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I'm an amateur at music and an amateur at most things. I like the idea of offering some music and some records and a website to people who feel perplexed.
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My main theme as a songwriter seems to be a feeling of homelessness, of being in motion. The feeling of being somehow unmoored, a radical internal freedom that is very painful and also joyful.
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I've been writing songs since I was a teenager, so one kind of song I've written a lot is about, I don't know, teen angst feelings - feeling unsure of yourself and immature.
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We take a lot of inspiration from punk rock and early rock 'n' roll from the '50s and early '60s.
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I believe an authentic Judaism would legislate total equality for queer people.
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I'm just grateful to people who are willing to admit how bad things feel for them.
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Jews like to write and sing. In America, a lot of us have been eager to show that we're part of American culture. But it all goes back to King David writing Psalms.
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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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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.