Of all my childhood books, 'The Giving Tree and Hope for the Flowers' really did change my early world, but after reading 'Momo' in my 30s, I thought, Ahhhhhh, this is the one book I wish I had read as a kid! Then reread at every subsequent chapter of my life.
— Devendra Banhart
I practice Rasayana Buddhism.
I've always thought it'd be nice to be seaweed, kind of just floating about.
The real hippie is trying to create something inclusive, something holistic, something loving and healthy which isn't in perpetual conflict with authority and actually knows that the only way to disarm the entire game is to step aside and not take any sides.
Green is one of my favorite colors.
One not-to-be-mentioned major said they would sign me if I worked with a team of songwriters to help me finish songs, ha! Of course, in hindsight, I should've done it just to see what that would have been like.
With music there's so many limbs and facets. Video and touring and merchandise and all those little things require attention. They're artist things but I tend to joke around too much with those things.
I'm very lucky my parents were into different kinds of music.
I love 'Star Wars.'
I've always said that musicians are the comics of my generations and comedians are the politicians of my generation.
Coming to Canada, I'd really like to see Sasquatch.
Well I am a Gemini.
Venezuela is incredible, but Caracas? Oh God, I hate it. The sidewalks get smaller every time I go back.
When I came home my parents were listening to Pakistani Qawwali music, like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, they're listening to music from Mali, like Ali Farka Toure, they're listening to Brazilian songwriters, like Gilberto Gil, to opera, to Neil Young even, things you don't hear as a kid in Caracas. I love all the music they turned me onto.
No one's fearless. We're all full of fear. But can your fear guide you or lean into it, embrace it.
At some point in your life, if you live in Venezuela, you come across or own a cuatro. Either at school, either at camp, either at a friend's house, at a birthday or Christmas or bar mitzvah, you end up with a cuatro. It's like a must.
I look at making records like you make a dish. A culinary experience. The way you throw in a tambourine, it's like spices or herbs. The main part of the song is the stock.
I was born in Texas, you know. I was born in Houston.
Something I practice everyday is Tonglin. It's Tibetan for taking and receiving.
In the next life what would my career be? Oh, easy. Dried persimmon dealer.
I sometimes feel like I should be in the hotel business.
I like clothes. I really do. I like going through colors, in a way. I go, 'Greens, man. Greens. Oh, yellow. This yellow feels good.' So it shapes your psyche in a way. But I don't think about it too much, even though I'm interested in it.
I come from a school of artists, the Mission School in San Francisco, and there are a lot of artists I look up to.
I've always lived in small places.
I don't ever think of myself as a dark person or a ruined person in any way. I just feel happy to be alive, and to be able to love.
I was born with a beard. We're quite hairy down in Latin America. We don't have to use sponges when we wash dishes. We just use our baby beards.
My interested in Brazilian music stemmed from wanting to find a musical identity other than the salsa and meringue that I was inundated with in Venezuela as a child.
Personally speaking, Canada is becoming more and more beguiling and mysterious and I feel as though I really need to explore it.
I believe we are all dual beings. Some cultures actually believe we have two souls.
John Cage is someone I got into as a visual artist, before I even knew his music. I don't think a lot of people even know that he does visual art.
Growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, the ubiquitous music is salsa, cumbia, merengue, a little bit of samba.
Leigh Bowery is a legend. Everybody loves Leigh Bowery. Everybody should love Leigh Bowery.
A soul singer is always singing to their crowd. They're always singing about their woes to you. And I really appreciate that when a singer is making you feel... when they're directing it at me. When they're including me.
I want to say that Beck is incredible. He is an art machine.
I love Meredith Monk, and with Instagram, I get a chance to see if she has a cat, and what's she reading.
The first paid show was in Los Angeles at an art opening and I was paid maybe, I don't know, twenty five bucks?
It's embarrassing to quote Gandhi or something, but being the change you want to see in the world is pretty powerful.
I remember when I was a kid I thought I could either be an athletic water drinker, like an Olympic-level water drinker, or I could invent Windex. Which I thought was really smart, because it already existed.
I've been doing visual stuff for as long as I've been making records; in fact, for longer.
I can't imagine anyone approaching art without the joy of experimentation. The joy of it is inherent... and that is how you flow with the reality of change.
I do have very small handwriting.
Well, love is a difficult thing to hold on to. It's a slippery little beast. It will hold you and then it will elude you at any moment.
People love to take sides, but it's not effective. It's not really an effective way of communicating something, because you're either already part of the side or you're going to feel attacked and get defensive.
I guess I don't want everyone to know what I'm doing every second.
Canada has really grown and grown as this unexplored and very mysterious and exotic place to me.
Caracas was a crazy place in the early Nineties. For instance, when I was 11 years old, I pierced my ear. No big deal, right? But everyone was so scandalised that they shut down the school.
I was just a huge fan of Blur, Suede, Elastica and Pulp, of course, even Menswear and Ocean Colour Scene.
Let's take fashion seriously, but not ourselves so seriously. Or reverse that, maybe don't take fashion so seriously, but take yourself seriously. Actually, don't take yourself seriously, that's for sure. So, yeah, take fashion seriously, just not yourself.
If you're ever wondering what to wear, just dress like a pumpkin, you're good to go.
For a long time, soul music was maybe one of my favorite kinds of music.
