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Irish people never think we're Irish. Americans think we're European or French.
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Every band I've come across has read more than I have.
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Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free/to be more like the man you were made to be.
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The New Lost City Ramblers are a very good comparison, actually. They really took the music seriously, and we take the music very seriously. But we don't take ourselves seriously at all.
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I approach my life haphazardly. Not much holiness and only as much wisdom as I can muster.
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I don't understand how those old bands did it. We worked out early on that if we did three gigs in a row and went out afterwards, we'd lose our voices. We know our limits.
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'Babel' is a continuation of a project; it's not like now we are more theatrical. We've grown up, seen places, been places, and that is shown in this album.
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I regret a couple of wardrobe decisions.
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A lot of the time writers are just sponges... for what's around them, and so books are helpful for focusing your mind and literally putting it into words.
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It's a unique thing to stand in front of a crowd and sing your songs.
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I'm very English, and we don't talk about emotions publicly.
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I became obsessed with Simian Mobile Disco's music and poorly attempted to make my own techno music.
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'Somebody That I Used to Know' by Goyte has an odd, '80s vibe to it, but that does not mean that I did not like it. Quite the opposite actually. The song is different, and slowly lured me in. The video is just as strange, but definitely enjoyable.
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Some people like the same thing forever, but I don't know. We kind of, like, listen to loads of different stuff, and our attention spans aren't good enough. So there was a bit of frustration when you're, like, having to play the same thing all the time because we play all, like, loads of different instruments.
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We formed the band because we wanted to tour. That was our common interest.
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I play banjo, and in Britain, it's easy to get away with playing banjo because you don't often see it on U.K. stages. In America, people know when you're a good banjo player, so I was really nervous about playing out there. But we actually went down really well.
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You're always thinking about making new music.
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I don't even call myself a Christian.
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Somebody told me about a band that works out their whole set as if it was one song. They learn the whole set as one piece, so they know how the dynamics of it work. It's really difficult to do, and you can only really do it while you're on tour, as being in a rehearsal studio is not the same as being on stage in front of an audience.
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One of the things we say in this band is if it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
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I think that's why so many school bands start on guitars: because they hide their mistakes with the distortion.
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We get accused of inauthenticity because we play the instruments we play.
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The day we struggle to enjoy what we do and just get the gig over with we'll quit.
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Things got big quickly for us, and playing arenas... it's like - and every band will tell you this - you don't see any of the town.