I don't really believe in trying to erase every Woody Allen movie from history. For one thing, that's kind of unfair to all the people who worked on those movies or albums or whatever it is. What did they do wrong to have their work erased from culture?
— Ezra Furman
I really don't care about what anyone says unless they are also gender-nonconforming. Then I really listen. I love the solidarity felt between us gender failures.
I think of myself as someone who's trying to be a great songwriter and a great performer. And I mean really great.
Far from being a showbiz gimmick, for me dressing as I please has signalled the end of a lifelong performance of straightforward masculinity.
One of my goals in making music is to make the world seem bigger, and life seem larger.
We take a lot of inspiration from punk rock and early rock 'n' roll from the '50s and early '60s.
I just don't care that much about the band name. I'm not so precious about it. The Harpoons were different people, but The Boy-Friends were and are the same people as The Visions. I changed it to The Visions when we made 'Transangelic Exodus' because I guess we didn't feel so friendly and boyish anymore.
I always maintain that artists do not have any responsibility to do anything except cause no harm and do whatever we want to do as artists.
God is close to the brokenhearted, and God lifts up the lonely. That was a message that was explicitly quoted to me and was part of my upbringing: Brokenhearted people and poor people and people who are in trouble should be your focus, and you should be on their team.
The Velvet Underground is probably the best band that's ever existed, assuredly the best American one.
I don't really worship the album 'Transformer.' It's not the best thing that Lou Reed has done.
It's always about staying competitive with myself... Popularity is something that may happen from time to time, and I don't trust it and I don't think it means too much. I'm going for greatness.
We need a lot more visibility of queer people in public life. People gotta get used to it.
I was pretty much into punk rock and that's all I cared about. I was into Green Day and the Ramones. I wanted to get a guitar so I could play punk songs because this kid taught me power chords at summer camp.
I think I'm gradually becoming a more politically aware person.
A lot of bands break through with their third record: the White Stripes, the Clash, the Replacements.
I'm a big fan of Louis CK - I think he's a master of standup.
As children my grandparents were refugees. Eventually they got to the U.S. - in 1950 or something. They grew up as refugees. Their earliest memories are of living in a home with their family. It's in my blood, I guess, to have a fear about encouraging fascism.
My main theme as a songwriter seems to be a feeling of homelessness, of being in motion. The feeling of being somehow unmoored, a radical internal freedom that is very painful and also joyful.
I am frustrated at misconceptions of me, and being cast in a role.
Sometimes there's a day where I don't feel good being out in the world, and I feel unsafe in the world in general. And an anxiety about just showing up in the world. It's kind of irrational, but people do say things to me out in the street about how I'm dressed.
I feel like my consignment and fear from people pushed me to become a performer.
My focus is matters of the heart and matters of the spirit, emotion and passion and stuff like that. But I think I've been getting better at being more specific about what it is I care about. Such as the welfare of refugees and solidarity between threatened populations.
I'm trying to be an activist, and I think of that as separate from my work as an artist. But it isn't.
Not only am I a shy person, I take a little while to say what I mean, especially in a social situation, and usually those move too fast for me to say anything at all.
I first got into music when I heard punk, and it was saying maybe it's OK if you don't live up to the expectations various authorities have for you.
I write good songs out of fear... fear of failure. Because if they're not good enough, you feel yourself starting to fall.
I was rather obsessed with angels.
I could write a joke song really easily, but I think something that might be true for my generation is that there's a certain irony or detachedness expected of us, even though we really feel sincere. So the only way to sincerity is through a joke.
I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.
If you get into really learning about the roots of monotheism, it was utterly a radical cultural moment. The Bible was so revolutionary and against all that came before it.
Just being a normal person and having a social life involves a lot of dishonesty for me.
I love obsessive fandom because I'm an obsessive fan who flips out over music.
I think there's a large worry in queer communities about imitating straight people, when queerness has its own identity and maybe can be a radical force that should be dismantling stuff that locks people into structures.
I think I'm becoming a climate activist.
I grew up attending a Conservative day school, Solomon Schechter, until I was about 14, and going to a Reconstructionist synagogue.
In terms of keeping kosher, I've basically just been vegetarian. I want to be fully vegetarian anyway, though sometimes my mom makes chicken soup and I have to eat it. I just love it.
I take it hard whenever anything happens that makes, I guess, queer people feel less safe and less welcome in the world.
I feel like one thing that messed me up was living in a homophobic and transphobic society, and just being the object of mockery and disgust in your average sitcom or movie or person at school.
I see a skill developing of writing about not just feelings that I'm feeling, but things that I deeply care about as well.
I don't like the notion that artists have a responsibility to be political.
A repressed person overcoming their repression always makes good music.
I get stage fright really bad sometimes, so touring has been hard on me in a lot of ways. But despite that, I love performing.
You have to make a character of yourself if you're going to be known to strangers.
Jews like to write and sing. In America, a lot of us have been eager to show that we're part of American culture. But it all goes back to King David writing Psalms.
I heard the Velvet Underground and that changed things when I was like, 15.
I write all the time and I try to think of ideas all the time.
I like going to bed early and getting up early, but that doesn't happen on tour.
If I can see the sunrise - and I usually don't - I like to. I'm a big fan of the sun.
I love it when people write rapturously about music they love.
