Broken Social Scene Quotes
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You're not going out there to make a living out of it by selling records. You want acclaim and you want to know people are listening.
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There's an interesting story around that ["Heaven Without a Gun"], because the girl I was dating at the time got into a bike accident and couldn't make it into the studio, and the gentleman Dave Hamlin who worked on this record along with Ohad sort of took it, rearranged it. Dave went and sonically changed it and changed the keys so that Andy could sing it better. All these pieces came together that suddenly displayed that the song was meant for Andy [Kim] to sing. And he always said, "I'll never understand it, but I'll sing it with all my heart."
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Believe in the power of songs.
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This is the thing I've noticed is that the greater the distance between you and any ordinary task is the measurement of how much rockstar potential you have.
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People don't get that being a musician is a job, they don't get what the work takes. And that's just because you're living a dream, so everyone who's observing it from the outside can't really empathize with how much work it is because you're fortunate. And it's a kind of competition with yourself to stay away from all of the excess, whether it's booze or drugs or just the late nights with the addiction to watching the sun rise in some weird part of the world. But when you meet the other musicians, there's generally a spiritual exhaustion that you connect with.
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People are terrible. They do terrible things to each other, they hurt each other, they lie, they're vain, they're shallow, they're violent ... but they're all we have.
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Certain audiences get the double meaning and some of the references and ironies, but there's definitely been shows where I feel like I'm not doing it well enough for it to come across as anything other than "oh, she's hot and she's dancing."
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When I see friends of mine break up and they're like, "Oh, we still really love each other, but we just couldn't make it work," I don't get that. I don't understand what that means. Make it work.
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Your obstacles define your achievements, and without those obstacles, you're just another bland nothing.
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I got a little lost in "Law & Order" and "Luther" and all those shows where it's basically women dying all the time, I had to stop watching that stuff because it fills me with anxiety. And I joined a gym.
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I much prefer to write everything by myself. It's kind of difficult. It's like getting undressed in a really bright light.
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You know and I know that as soon as it's done, you have to get it out there. You want what's best for it. And especially in owning a label, which some days is the greatest thing for me and in some days is my demise because you see the truth and the work that goes into things and you see things happen and you see things not happen, and all you want in this world of currency right now is popularity, that's it!
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I try not to focus on the gender issue too much but I think you have to acknowledge it in order for it to go away.
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I am really inspired by writers, and weirdly - respect music journalists, which I think makes me the exception amongst most musicians. I think it's a craft. I think it's been really neglected - sadly. I think about the days of the great legendary rock critics. Who's going to become that when magazines and newspapers don't pay anyone properly or don't seem to respect the history or research that is required?
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I think you have to make concessions in life. One of the most frustrating things about getting older is [you realize] the reason you have a plan is so you can see everything that it isn't. The plan never works. Something happens and you adjust to it and you adapt to it and you accept it and you keep going, but that's not the plan.
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What inspires me is anxiety and the quest to try to change things in my life. ...I got addicted to endings and beginnings and to the idea of always moving around. ...Obviously, whenever you're going through something that's the best time to create, if you're going through something amazing, or horrible, or nothing at all you should be creating. Unfortunately the songwriters of today generally torture themselves to make sure they're writing good songs and take it a little too seriously.
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It bothers me that no one has the patience to deal with someone who is just sad.
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It's very hard for me to say "Do I have favorite?" because I find that each song represents a different sounds different emotions in Andy's [Kim] life. Particularly "Sister OK", 'cos that started everything.
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For all of my life, I've had this one song in my head, and I'm still trying to write it. I'm still trying to get that song out. I'm getting closer, every record I get a little bit closer to saying it the way I want to say it.
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We became a band that was kind of a big band, kind of a band that quite uncool people listen to, people a lot like me. I've realized that's a much more beautiful fate than the plan I had.
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We were a duo on tour, but it was his music and his songs. I was kind of his Vanna White/singing partner/torch-song singer. I was the straight man to his funny man.
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Acknowledging that we lose is the overarching theme in everything in Stars. To me, that's what punk means. Stars is a punk band because we acknowledge loss. We're not trying to win. We're not trying to project victory. You win alone. I'm not interested in singing for the one winner in the room; I'm interested in singing for all of the losers in the room.
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I always felt like I had to leave Canada, which I think is a common perspective - feeling as if you have to leave because otherwise you'll be too soft, and that objective reality exists in America. And I'm starting to feel like that doesn't have to be the case.
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I don't really write journals and stuff and then adapt them to music, it's completely within the form of the song. My great obsession and basically the bane of my existence is caring probably too much about every word, but it's too late to change my career path.