Pretenders Quotes
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Songwriting is like working on a jigsaw puzzle, and it doesn't make any sense until you find that last piece. It has to make sense or it doesn't work.
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In the earlier part of the 90s, I was really hell-bent on discovering how new technology works and how to make records entirely without a producer, which isn't necessarily what fans wanted. But I had to do it because I felt it was in my destiny or whatever.
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There's the meat eaters and there's us. And that's the way I look at the world.
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I can show bands how to produce themselves. In the same way, many bands think you can't make it without some fat cat in London or New York to manage you. Thats just crap. All you need is someone a bit older than you with a bit of business nous whom you trust.
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I don't think that Michael Jackson died. He's probably dead now, but I don't think he died when they said he did. I think he wanted out of the game anyway, so he just disappeared.
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Birkenstock desert boots have been a part of pop culture since the beatniks. I made such a fuzz about them being discontinued that the company send me an 'lifetime supply', which initially turned out to be seven pairs at two years apiece. They weren’t giving me very long. I think that’s why I gave up smoking.
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As a youngster I used to try to pick up any bits of wisdom about the guitar I could. It's not like now where you have books and books about every aspect of anything. Any little pearl of wisdom was welcome back then.
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I've run all the bands I've been in. A great front man needs that other person. It's not enough to have a guy with a cute face standing behind a microphone. I see it like the classic romantic relationships with men and women, where the woman lets the man think he's running it. It's a classic matriarchal trait, and that's always been part of my personality.
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I really like Howler and an American band on Sub Pop called Jaill. There will always be new bands that I like, it's always been that way. I still go out to shows. One thing I don't like now is this idea that all singing needs to be expressed at maximum volume with so much bullshit sentimentality - it's pervading regular pop music.
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Navigating with a partner makes it half as difficult. We keep each other in check. It's not like she [Angie Marr] was ever a quiet little wifey wife behind the scenes. She's exactly like me. She's very smart. We're very lucky that we've always wanted the same things. She loves guitar music, she loves important records, and our lives are about records and shows and great bands.
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Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and Ive been a guitar junkie ever since.
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We're in a society where no one's putting a gun to your head and making you use your phone, but some people start to crack. "I Want the Heartbeat" is about the downside of it. People can and do break up friendships and relationships because of the internet, and that can't be good. You have to find a balance. You can't let it be the boss of you.
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I was never too interested in high school. I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band. So I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, made it kind of hard for me to get too interested in the guys that were around me. I had, uh, bigger things in mind.
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I don't like to think that I'm on a treadmill of album, tour, promotion and all that.
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People say to me, 'Do you dye your hair?' and I say, 'Well, does f**king Siouxsie Sioux? Does Bowie?'. Of course I'm going to have a decent haircut. It's one of the first things I learnt to do - get a few songs together and get your hairstyle right.
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Now chart music is a genre all of its own and it's slipped away from what I understand pop music as. It's pretty difficult to take; it clogs up the airwaves.
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I'm not a figurehead for anything. I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.
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There's this celebrity thing that goes along with making records or being a rock star. I'm into this celebrity thing just enough to let me go on making records and making a living out of it.
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Anything that's ever gotten on the charts as a result of "American Idol" or "The X Factor" in the UK. It's born out of karaoke culture. It's been a long time coming, but it's absolutely affected radio.
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The actual process of travel I really like, because that time on planes and in airports makes me feel like I'm moving around like a ghost. There's a certain aspect of justifiable downtime. I really feel like being online is so pervasive now.
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Some cities are really boring and straight.
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I think it's a shame when pop culture forgets that theatricality is a big part of it. When Neil Young is fumbling around in his pocket looking for the right harmonica, it doesn't matter that he's a dude in the hat who is a man of the people - there's a theatricality there. You don't have to be David Bowie or the Kabuki theater to have that theatricality going on.
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I preferred rock when it was in the dark, when it was a secret between me and the audience, when it wasn't mainstream.
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Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?JM: Never get into a situation you can’t get out of. I really have stuck to it, because it’s good advice for all walks of live.