Broken Bells Quotes
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I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.
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I've never been one to think it was cheating to sample this or to loop the drum part there - I've always done that. Even using four-track cassette recorders, I was always doing whatever I could to make it as good as I could.
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We played a festival in Ireland once, and in the middle of 'New Slang,' the Scissor Sisters kicked in across the field on this mega stage. It was a little distracting. It was hard to keep track of what I was supposed to sing.
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I think that once you start writing songs, you start developing a library of ideas that you can go and take from, so it gets easier as you go.
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So happy that Broken Bells is a thing in my life and really cool in so many ways. Not only, like, as something to sell records and be a band and whatnot, but just to give me an outlet and give me a fresh approach on things.
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I kissed my first girl when I was 15, and then I lost my virginity when I was 17. So that's pretty good. It was just that when you're in high school, you're sort of forced into the normal world, where you're competing with the football players, just kind of in that world where somebody like me didn't quite fit in.
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I'm not really excited about the idea of committing to anything permanently.
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In the end, I think musicians know that getting up in the morning and making music you love doesn't necessarily mean that you deserve billions of dollars or worship from anybody.
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The part of modern pop music I don't know much about is hip hop.
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I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before.
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A big part of making an album is that you want to have enough material - you want to have enough stuff for people to hear and know that it represents you.
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What affected me the most about the Beatles was that they were the biggest band in the world and they could have done anything they wanted.
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All I do is listen to music. It's a weird thing. It's like I have so much catching up to do. I've always been over my head. That's just the way I work best, you know. Like when you're studying for school you think, "I can only study when I have to study the night before." That kind of means you're lazy or you're a procrastinator, but for me with music it's a similar thing. It's like I've been over my head for most of my career so to speak.
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There's something artistic about skating. A psychologist could tell you exactly why that is, but I think there's something much more expressive that gives you a lot of room for unique and individual expression. Whatever you're interested in can become something you kind of own in your group of skater friends.
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I tend to write a pretty half and half split of, like, slow, morose things and then sort of more upbeat stuff.
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I've always sort of felt like what the Shins is, I guess, is a vehicle for my writing.
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My extended family is very political and very polar with each other, and it's put a bad taste in my mouth. All the rhetoric going back and forth and sort of hating on each other. So I'm not an extremely politically active person at this stage of my life.
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My dad and I get into it all the time. He loves to discuss politics much more than I do and we have pretty heated conversations.
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I do like talking with friends about big concepts, you know, the stuff that will ruin a party. To me, the party hasn't begun until we're talking about the nonexistence of God.
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I remember being in high school, and you had to draw those lines and define yourself. I don't think when I was in high school I would have been willing to admit that I liked the Shins. I was into TSOL and Black Flag. I probably would have listened to the Shins secretly in my bedroom.
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Horrible dates are when you're with people who are immature and can't really be comfortable in their own skin.
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I'm trying to avoid having regrets about missing opportunities. That would be the worst thing. Like having an audience waiting, and not working hard enough, and coming out with a record that disappointed them.
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I've never gone through an audition process or anything. In most of my decisions like that, I just kind of feel it out: You know, do I feel comfortable with this person?
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I suppose, if someone was into baseball for an extended period of time during their formative years, they're always going to be interested in it.