Fun. Quotes
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There was this darkness about being from New Jersey.
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We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock.
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For me, a perfect pop song is something like 'This Year,' by the Mountain Goats.
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I think it's all about making records when you're inspired to make them.
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Lyrics have become so dumbed down nowadays. People don't want to have to think about lyrics anymore, they just want to be told something. Until these great things started happening with us, I'd really given up on reaching people like that.
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The first time I ever got paid to play was 1/18/99, Fire Hall in Bordentown, New Jersey. Played first on the bill - we got paid $20!
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I always wanted to be a singer, but none of my friends thought I could sing.
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The music business is filled with some nice people but a lot of strange people, so when you come across someone who's really genuine at an environment as bizarre as an awards show, you typically gravitate to them.
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There's nothing more adult than being ripped away from friends and family, you know? Having to manage a life when you're not fully there, manage a life when you don't make a lot of money. It's very adult.
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What song have you played 10,000 times? It's probably not something basic. It's probably a song that validates your experience on Earth.
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It's important that I get time to run, to just go for a jog for about 30 minutes. It helps with my voice, but it also kind of gives me a little bit of time to myself - and you get to see a city.
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I've never really identified with the way a typical alpha male views women. It's always an awkward forum for me to hang out with another guy and talk about girls, because I can't really find a way to fit in.
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I'm not trying to write a perfect record. I'm just trying to nail a moment in time.
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Of course, the majority of us would speak up in the face of outrageous bigotry, but do we speak up in a social situation when someone casually refers to something as 'gay'? If we don't, we are standing with the homophobes whom we are quietly fighting.
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When you're in a band, it's like everyone's the CEO, and anyone could destroy it at any moment.
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When artists get very big, they kind of forget that that's why they got big.
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I've noticed that a lot of people in film always seem interested in music videos, like it's some, like, really exciting thing they've always wanted to do or something.
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The easiest way I can describe what makes a pop song a pop song is that it's a song you want to hear over and over.
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I want to come and play in cities and states where transgender citizens are not discriminated against, where there's no hateful bathroom bills at the shows where I'm going to be playing.
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I've gone down to the Jersey Shore every summer since I was born. It's like a second home, and Asbury Park is like the capital - it's the center of all of it. Musically, it's incredible.
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With art and the work you do, it has to be constantly dictated by what you're feeling and where you want to go with it.
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I have my cousin's jacket from when he was at war in Iraq. He never came home. It's incredible to have something that is so personal but that I also feel relatively comfortable wearing.
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Stepping away from Fun. was both exciting and terrifying.
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Tinashe doing 'I Wanna Get Better' - it's a really personal song, and it was hard for me to imagine anyone else doing it, but stylistically her and I are so incredibly different that I was fascinated to hear what she'd do with it, and I completely loved it. It just felt like the different expression of a song that, to me, was so stamped in one way.