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When Sonic Youth writes music, we write everything in a very communal way. It doesn't matter who brought something in initially; it all gets transformed by the band.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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When Sonic Youth wrote music, we would rehearse for months before anybody heard anything.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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We're not really an underground band anymore, and we're not a mainstream band, either.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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My solo shows require a sit-down, indoor space.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band, because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry.
Thurston Moore Sonic Youth
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I've been sort of writing sketches for songs on my own forever and putting them down on cassette tapes. Yet for years and years and years, my main songwriting outlet was as a member of Sonic Youth, and for most of our time together, our best songs were written in a group setting, where the four of us were getting together in a room.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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I guess, from the beginning, Thurston and Kim were the dominant singers in the band, and although I was singing in bands previously, I guess I mainly deferred to them a lot in terms of who was singing the bulk of the songs.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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We'd been on Geffen for a long time, and I think we felt that we needed a change. I just don't think we felt very close to the people at the label after all this time or that they understood what we were trying to do. I don't have any regrets, because at the time we signed with Geffen, it was the right thing to do.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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I grew up in the early '70s in New England.
Thurston Moore Sonic Youth
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I'm a mom, but I don't always want to look just like that.
Kim Gordon Sonic Youth
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Every band runs its course.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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I didn't intend to make one solo record, much less two. It's really a matter of seeing how it goes.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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We used to have endless discussions with journalists about that: 'Why are you calling it noise? It's not noise, it's music,' and make references to everybody from John Cage to whoever.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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Sonic Youth could never really get it together acoustically - quite frankly, it wasn't something we were really that interested in.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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No one really gets rich doing this. A couple people do, Black Sabbath does. We don't sell any records anymore.
Thurston Moore Sonic Youth
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Being someone who plays gigs and finding many, many memorable ones in different ways, I guess I'd have to say I don't really have a single favourite one that I could pick out.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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I'm a relatively shy person, but I love being challenged and putting myself in positions that are scary.
Kim Gordon Sonic Youth
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My wife's from Canada, and we're Canadian citizens.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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It's American Alternative radio stations that bug me. We're considered Alternative, but don't expect us to be played next to Blink 182 and Offspring. We're hardly of that generation.
Thurston Moore Sonic Youth
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I came late to Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention. I don't know why, but that's the beauty of music - songs and voices are there when you need them, when you're ready to find them, whether in their time or after.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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Sonic Youth has a very democratic process for the most part. It almost doesn't matter who brings in an initial idea; everything gets worked over by the band and kind of co-written by everyone in the end because everyone's ideas get contributed to it.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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We'll go in one direction with one album, and then we like to do the opposite right away. But it's not like we ever have an idea before we start - that would be too artificial. It all starts from just sitting in a room and playing.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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I don't mourn the old, romantic, dirty Times Square, although it was more unique.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
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I always think that, for me, being someone who comes out of electric guitar experimentation, the idea of playing acoustic guitar is, in itself, kind of a radical move.
Lee Ranaldo Sonic Youth
