I'm pretty easy going. I can be anyway. I definitely have my moments. You can ask my kids. But I try to be nice.
— Samuel Ervin Beam
I'm not a particularly macabre person.
As a writer, there is only so much of your own life you can draw on.
Well, for me, I grew up in the Carolinas, and it's our mythology. Those are the characters that we learn about how to live life and moral lessons. It wasn't Zeus and Athena. It was Job and Jesus.
I listen to everything: noise, classical, jazz. I like lots of different types of food. There's no way you could get me to eat the same meal everyday, so why would I do the same with music?
I feel like anytime you write about people in an honest way, you can find connections to any issue you would like.
Every musician that comes along teaches me something.
The things that have been most popular with people have always been a total surprise, and so I've never felt like I could really truthfully predict public taste, so why bother?
I didn't really intend on having a music career. It just kind of happened.
I learned early on that you do yourself a disservice trying to replicate the record onstage every night. As a player, and for the audience I think, it's a mistake.
I don't write Plastic Ono Band stuff, though I love that record.
Saxophones are awesome.
I don't watch that much TV.
I was drawn to painting and filmmaking because I was interested in communicating visually, which spills over into my tendencies as a writer.
I was just writing songs in my spare time, and recording because it's fun to do, and Sub Pop called me and said they wanted to put some stuff out. I had to weigh whether I wanted to put the time into it because it's a commitment. But, in the end, it seemed too good to pass up.
I make music and hope people enjoy it - but when they do it's always a surprise. A nice surprise, but not one that I expect to always be there.
I live in Texas, man. It's hard to be a vegetarian down here.
I'll always err on the side of art for art's sake.
I've learned a lot from being on a major.
My day-to-day existence is, honestly, a little boring.
I don't really listen to a lot of stuff that sounds real similar to me because I work on that kind of music all day. I end up listening to more jazz, stuff that I can't really play.
I have a short attention span.
Love songs are helpful. We've always needed as much love as we could possibly need.
Every time I play with a new musician I absorb something, even if it's someone you don't like!
I don't really make particularly abrasive music, but at the same time I wouldn't change something to make people like it.
A thing can be too pretty and perfect, so if you kick some dirt on it, then it feels like you wore it around a bit.
I find making records by myself incredibly boring.
You can sand something forever. You can keep working on it. All the arts are like that: there's no magical finish line. You get sick of working on it or you walk away.
I'm a movie buff, and I'm interested in the craft of it.
I liked 'The Omen.'
I like short records in general that you can swallow in one sitting.
My wife is a midwife, and there's only so many states where you can do that. Texas is a place where she can work.
I like to keep working and keep changing. It's a hopeful, optimistic thing to think and sit about what you could do next. Maybe it's blind optimism.
I have a hard time saying I'm going to make a whole record of just rock-out songs, because that gets boring, you know? And my voice doesn't scream very well.
Anything to shake you out of the normal habits is good.
I don't advertise what I do to my kids. I don't go around waving a flag. I'm sure they are proud, in a certain way. I'm not like 'hey kids - check this out.' No matter what they do, your dad is still your dad. Nothing is going to help you out in that regard. Dad is just not cool.
I like having a big band because it gives you more options. They can always not play and I can do the quiet stuff, but when we want to do the big arrangements, we can.
It's nice to play new songs, but it's nerve-wracking.
What's around the corner is always more exciting than the corner that I'm on, unfortunately.
We all have holes inside. We need love.
Sometimes you have to be reminded where you were at the time, and songs are a good vehicle for that. It's so funny how those things are connected with your memory.
My folks had a lot of Motown records, so that was a kind of an early inspiration. I grew up on the radio really.
At art school you realize that in order to stay engaged you have to ignore the critics, good and bad.
I have a certain amount of creative energy, and it used to go painting. Now most of it goes to music. I like to make things. I treat the songs more like poems than prose, so in that sense, I don't really have a point to make. I just try to be surprised.
The Beatles showed with 'Sgt. Pepper's' that you can make an album out of anything, just make it seem like it's connected.
A lot of the big-budget movies, craft-wise, are amazing, but have a boring story. And the indies have their idiosyncrasies.
You can treat musicians like actors - you give them a roadmap but don't tell them what to do, and let their personal style or interpretation speak in the piece. And in both film and music, you create a space where people feel safe to do their best. You treat songs like scripts that can be interpreted a lot of different ways.
Music is definitely cheaper and more immediate. But part of the draw of film to me is the multidisciplinary aspect. I always enjoyed film writing.
You cannot predict public taste. That's why I always just trusted mine.
I went to an art school and you learn very quickly there that you're only as good as your next idea, not so much what you've got going on at the moment. And so I embraced that. It sunk in at an early point.
